2023 review and 2024 Outlook Article

[dll2000]

There is no question in my mind that the 2024 Bears are a more talented roster than the 2023 Bears.  A lot more talented.  I think few people would disagree with that assessment.  

 Let's quick review of how the 2023 season went game by game so we can have some context of comparing this team to last years team. 

Bears opened with Green Bay and it was Jordan Love's first game as a full time starter and his surrounding cast was very inexperienced.  Packers puddle stomped the Bears who were completely unprepared to play that game due in no small part to camp injuries and issues, but also to sub par QB play and poor coaching.   It should be noted that when not playing the Bears Love played very poorly for most part in first half of the season.  This was a winnable game on paper.  

Bears then got dominated by Tampa Bay who nobody thought was any good at the time.  Baker Mayfield was coming off a 170 yard passing performance against Vikings.  Again a winnable game on paper.  

The Chiefs was first good opponent (at time) we faced in '23 and they beat us like a drum.  Fields threw for 99 yards.  1 TD and 1 int.  

Next up is Broncos.  The Broncos were 0-3 and had just lost by 50 and that score could have been worse.  People were speculating that this may be one of worst teams in NFL history.  They beat the Bears.   Another winnable game on paper we lost.

At this point Bears are 0-4 and considered worst team in the league and no one is afraid to play them. 

Enter Washington Whatevers and the great Sam Howell.   Justin Fields plays his best game of season.  Bears smoke them on the road in a dominating performance.  This game gave a lot of Bears fans hope that Fields had a turned corner, but that turned out not to be the case.  I speculated it may be a good time to trade him - sell high and all that.  But I knew that would never happen, it was a year for Poles evaluate Field future and it was too early to make a call.  Fields passed his test in this week.  But let's be honest, from here on out Sam Howell will probably never start another game in NFL.  It wasn't as super impressive a team victory as you would like.  

Bears play Vikings who owned us defensively in '23.  Fields gets hurt after playing terrible.  We lose.  We are now 1-5.

Enter Tyson Bagent and a decent Raiders team.  Bears dominate the Raiders 30-12 and Getsy, unbeknownst to him at time, gets job security for 2024.   Nice work rookie, we are 2-5.  Some minority of Bears fans are calling for Bagent to keep his job when Fields comes back.  

Bears fans are optimistic and feeling good again.  It was short lived as Chargers destroy all that nonsense thinking and put us back in our place 30-13.  We drop to 2-6.  Bagent talk mostly goes away.  

Something needs to be done!  Poles to the rescue - Bears make a trade for Montez Sweat.  Next up is the Aints led by a disappointing Derek Carr.  Derek Carr did disappoint (the Saints), but Bagent disappointed worse to tune of 3 turnovers and Bears lost again.  But defense looked different, this was a trend that would mostly continue rest of season.    Bears are 2-7.

We need more help.  Enter the worst team in the league (aside from Bears at time).  We get the win behind Bagent not turning ball over and good defense to move 3-7. 

This week we play a good Lions team.  We beat them 3 quarters and then lose in 4th.   A theme for '23.  Offensive output remains poor.  Fields throws for 169 yards in one of his better games.  It should be noted that he ran for 104 yards.  Still not a great overall game.  We fall to 3-8.

A demoralized Vikings team is back and they are starting Josh Dobbs.  Josh Dobbs.  We barely win 12-10 in a rather pathetic offensive performance.  Fields threw for 217 yards and ran for 59.  I should note Vikings used exact same defensive game plan against us twice and it worked twice.  Better the second time.  We move to 4-8.

Lions came in and we dominated them this time.  I suspect they were looking past us and I don't blame them.  I remember thinking Fields played really good in this game, but his stat line looks like most of his games.  19-33 for 223 yards and 1 TD, that's not a great stat line for a modern NFL QB.  We move to 5-8.

Next up is the Browns and we really need this game to keep playoff hopes alive.  Playoffs!?!  Yeah, it's crazy.   Ha, they are playing Joe Flacco off the couch, easy peasy lemon squeezy.

We lose and Fields goes 19-40 with 2 ints.  Bears lose despite the defense picking off Flacco 3 times.  This is point where I jumped off the Fields bandwagon and onto the Caleb Williams bandwagon.   

Bears have 3 basically meaningless games remaining in season.

Next is a 3 win Cardinals team playing like hot garbage.  Bears win easy, but Fields stat line is 15-27 for 170 yards, 1 TD and 1 int. again not great.

We have the great Taylor Heinicke coming to town this week.  Fields to his credit plays really well.  His best game since Washington game and really looking back one of his only two good games of year statistically.   It was, in my opinion, the equivalent of garbage time stats though.   There was no pressure to win and a lot of Falcons players mailed it in.

We closed the season with Green Bay and they beat the socks off us.  Again.  Really depressing way to open and close the season.  But this was the first good team the Bears have played since Lions.   

Yes, Bears finished a near respectable 7-9, but the schedule was pathetically easy relatively speaking.  Average QB play throughout season sees us in the playoffs.

In '24, yes the Bears are better than '23.  Much better in my opinion.  But the Bears face an even better 2024 Lions team and an even better 2024 Packers team in division. 

The woeful AFCS is much improved this year over last year.  Everyone wants to talk about CJ Stroud's rookie year.  But his division was mostly a joke in 2023.  It isn't this year.   And the NFCN certainly isn't.   The Colts are talking a lot of trash.  They say their QB is bees knees and will be healthy this year to go with a pretty good defense on paper.  Titans spent a lot in Free Agency and so did the Panthers both their QBs have a year in NFL under their belt now. The Jags added some talented rookies and their QB is healthy again.  The Cardinals added MH Jr. 

I think the Bears 2024 schedule is harder than the 2023 schedule. 

Heading into 2024 Bears have had most radical roster changes going into a season since Poles got rid of veteran assets in his first season of '21.   The Bears defense of that year said goodbye Khalil Mack, Robert Quinn, Roquan Smith (in season), Akiem Hicks, Bilal Nichols, amongst others.  The offense was sans Allen Robinson, Charles Leno, and James Daniels, amongst others.  

This year changes were made mostly in other direction.   The biggest change is Bears will have a new starting QB for first time since Fields took over from Dalton in his rookie year of 2021.  In addition to Caleb Williams, Bears added two new starting WRs in Rome Odunze and Keenan Allen, two new centers, a new starting RB, a new number 2 TE, and a new starting safety.

With all the new talent additions the media and public expectations are highest for Bears since 2019.  Are they warranted?  

 Stay tuned and I will break down the 2024 outlook for Bears pre-training camp edition.

  Time for me to go home.  (Note I have no outline or plan for this.  I am just writing and thinking it at same time as I had to kill last hour of work waiting for some emails.  Sorry if it is a bit disjointed).

[soulman]

IMHO basing the strength of schedule on the previous years records of opponents really doesn't tell us much when from year to year teams can change dramatically as far as roster content and it can in no way take into consideration injuries to key players.  Theirs and ours/

[BEAR FACE DOWN ARROW]

9 hours ago, soulman said:

IMHO basing the strength of schedule on the previous years records of opponents really doesn't tell us much when from year to year teams can change dramatically as far as roster content and it can in no way take into consideration injuries to key players.  Theirs and ours/

Ha, I feel like SOS comes up a lot on podcasts, and every time i hear about it they always preface it with "this is not usually reliable year to year,but since it's June we're going to use it anyway"

Last year I feel like the toughness of the schedule was fairly accurate, with a few surprises like the Broncos and a few letdowns like the Packers looking like the Chiefs when they played us. 

[dll2000]

13 hours ago, soulman said:

IMHO basing the strength of schedule on the previous years records of opponents really doesn't tell us much when from year to year teams can change dramatically as far as roster content and it can in no way take into consideration injuries to key players.  Theirs and ours/

Yes, you have to take each season anew and look at what each team did in offseason.  Even then look at 2023 Vikings without Cousins.   Look at Jets without Rodgers.  Two radically different teams as most any team would be if they lose their starting QB.

You can go from facing a strong team to a weak one with one key injury.

 

[dll2000]

Just now, dll2000 said:

Yes, you have to take each season anew and look at what each team did in offseason.  Even then look at 2023 Vikings without Cousins.   Look at Jets without Rodgers.  Two radically different teams as most any team would be if they lose their starting QB.

You can go from facing a strong team to a weak one with one key injury.

 

Playing Love in first half of season versus second was radically different.  Except for the Bears. 

[BEAR FACE DOWN ARROW]

4 hours ago, dll2000 said:

Playing Love in first half of season versus second was radically different.  Except for the Bears. 

Almost certainly all teams fanbases feel like this, but I can remember so many games where QBs have their first great game, and it's against the Bears. Russell Wilson did it.  Nick Freaking Foles hung a thousand points on us and I can recall thinking "this guy's going to be a star!" which turned out to be right but in hilarious fashion. Also wished he was on the Bears, which also turned out but not hilariously. 

The narrative exists that the Bears cannot develop a QB, hogwash I say,  they are ******* amazing at developing everyone else's QB.