Proper earlier than the 2020 season, I wrote an article about how Ryan Tempo had mortgaged the Bears’ future foolishly, chasing a rivalry window that had already closed. The sentences that ended that piece: “The 2020 Bears should be a pretty good team. Fans would be wise to enjoy that, because 2021 and beyond don’t look as though they’ll be quite as much fun.”
5 years later, I want I had been improper, and I suppose I used to be improper about 2020. That classic went 8-8 and was not notably good. However the 4 seasons since have been downright depressing. Throughout that stretch, the Bears have:
Completed 21-47, the 2nd worst report within the NFL.
Completed 5-19 within the division, averaging barely multiple win in six makes an attempt per season in opposition to their essential rivals.
Suffered by way of two dropping streaks of at the very least ten video games, the one such streaks within the 100+ yr historical past of the franchise.
Cycled by way of three head coaches.
Been outscored by a cumulative 312 factors.
Moreover dropping so much, the offense has been a very brutal expertise. Within the final 4 years, that unit has:
Averaged solely 19.2 factors per recreation, rating a mean of twenty fourth within the NFL every year.
Allowed 229 sacks, probably the most within the NFL in that span by over TEN sacks. (They’ve ranked within the backside 7 in sacks allowed all 4 seasons.)
Cycled by way of 5 offensive coordinators, the perfect of whom may charitably be described as enough.
Spawned seemingly one million movie research about how the offense lacked any kind of clear plan or cohesion.
Made me scream at my TV in frustration roughly 25 instances per recreation as a consequence of a silly mistake you don’t count on a varsity highschool workforce to make (not getting the play name in on time, working the 14th WR display screen in a row, getting conservative as quickly as they get into lengthy discipline objective vary, and so forth.).
Someplace alongside the best way, watching Bears video games largely stopped being enjoyable and began feeling like one thing I needed to do. After years of setting my weekly fall calendar round when the Bears have been enjoying, I’ve discovered myself not even caring for a lot of the final two seasons. I’ve nonetheless watched each play, lots of them a number of instances, however discovered myself doing different issues as a substitute of watching the sport reside for most likely half the video games.
Watching video games after the very fact is way more time environment friendly – I can get by way of a complete recreation in about an hour – however the true pleasure of NFL video games is watching reside and experiencing it collectively with different followers. The frequent time outs and breaks between performs make it the best sport to speak about in actual time, whether or not that’s hanging out with pals in particular person, watching with strangers at a bar, speaking with people on Twitter, or hanging out in any of the Bears recreation chat rooms that exist on numerous fan websites (together with DBB). That’s considerably much less enjoyable, nevertheless, when all it’s important to speak about are the brand new and artistic methods the Bears discovered to screw up.
The Bears’ continued ineptitude has led me to a reasonably robust sense of burnout, and I do know I’m not the one one within the Bears blogger group who has skilled this. Jeff stepped again and handed the positioning off to Robert Schmitz for some time. Robert has now stopped making content material fully. Aaron Leming has stepped again how a lot he’s doing. It seems placing quite a lot of effort and time right into a workforce who persistently makes dumb selections, supplies a horrible on-field product, and spends the second half of each season enjoying out the string whereas being fully irrelevant is tough. (Editor’s Be aware: He’s not improper.)
I don’t know if Ben Johnson will win a Tremendous Bowl in Chicago. That’s a tall ask. For proper now, all I would like is for him to make the Bears enjoyable to look at once more.
And I’ve each motive to imagine he can just do that. He’s already completed it in Detroit. In 2021, the yr earlier than Johnson began as Detroit’s offensive coordinator, the Lions scored 19.1 factors/recreation, regardless of having Jared Goff, Amon-Ra St. Brown, TJ Hockenson, Jamaal Williams, D’Andre Swift, and a stable offensive line. In 2022, Johnson took principally the identical offensive gamers and improved them to 26.6 factors/recreation, the fifth highest complete within the NFL. They improved upon that mark because the personnel improved in each 2023 (27.1 factors/recreation) and 2024 (33.2 factors/recreation). Three seasons with Johnson calling performs yielded three prime 5 scoring offenses.
Johnson doesn’t get to carry Detroit’s ultra-talented offense with him to Chicago, however the Bears have some stable items in place in Caleb Williams, DJ Moore, Rome Odunze, Cole Kmet, Darnell Wright, and D’Andre Swift. Extra shall be added this offseason, however this group drastically underachieved to the tune of 18.2 factors/recreation final yr. I can’t wait to see what Johnson can do with them in 2025.
Let’s rating some factors. Let’s win some video games. Most significantly, let’s have some enjoyable.
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