Welcome to the Unofficial Beginning

of the

2022 Chicago Bears Season!

Rule #1. Injuries Matter Most.

The Bears can’t evaluate the myriad of young players on this roster if they’re not on the field. And the number of young players they must evaluate is overwhelming. Gordon. Brisker. Gipson. Jones Jr. Borom. Jenkins. All pivotal. All likely starters. Yes, the Bears will have the opportunity to complete reshape their roster next off-season. But they have to exit the 2022 campaign knowing which of these guys can be significant contributors. That means they have to stay healthy.

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Rule #2. Teams Don’t Show Fans, or Media, Anything.

It is always the most puzzling thing about the summer. NFL teams, the most secretive organizations in professional sport, hold practices in front of fans and media. And the fans and media think what they’re seeing is relevant. Why? Why would a team run a single play of note in front of a crowd that could easily be filled with spies from rival organizations (and usually is)? With every single fan in attendance now possessing the equipment to record every moment of practice, why would a team risk putting something they are going to rely upon during the season on tape?

Training camp practices are fun for fans. And the videos produced from these practices go a long way towards building excitement for the coming season. But if you’re trying to discern who is going to be good and who is not going to be good from a series of vanilla concepts run at 3/4 speed, you’re making a classic camp misstep.

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Rules #3. Avoid The Joe Anderson Boner.

The following is excerpted from a piece I wrote in July 2014:

Read More …

The Chicago Bears don’t think they are going to be good in 2022. Teams that think they’re going to be good don’t sell off Khalil Mack for (essentially) future cap space. Teams that think they’re going to be good don’t enter a season with 3/5 of their offensive line unsettled. Teams that think they’re going to be good don’t balk at just about every available free agent, including several at positions of extreme need. The Bears don’t think they’re going to be good in 2022 because being good in 2022 is not essential to this new leadership.

Rebuilds are a weird discussion in the NFL. In baseball, a rebuild requires selling off every viable commodity and losing for a decade while stockpiling draft picks and minor league assets. In the NBA, there are teams with multiple superstars and teams without them; everyone else is irrelevant. In hockey…I don’t know anything about hockey. There’s something with a forecheck I think?

In the NFL, rebuilds don’t exist. There are teams with top-level quarterbacks and teams without them. The teams with them are relevant each and every season and the Bears believe Justin Fields will get there. They do not believe, however, that he’s there right now. (And no one watching the 2021 tape would objectively disagree.)

When it comes to the roster around the quarterback, and when there is turnover at the head coach/GM positions, it takes no more than a single off-season to dump men and money and start the whole program over. Poles and Flus have followed a repeatable template, specifically one engaged by the regime running things in Buffalo currently.

But next season will be Fields’ third in the league and second in the system. No more excuses.

Next off-season the Bears will be loaded with cap space, chock full of draft picks and operating with endless roster flexibility. No more excuses.

The Bears are not going to be good in 2022 and that will be understandable. But the excuses end entirely in 2023. The new leadership will have had two drafts. They will have had two full off-seasons with the quarterback. They will have had the economic flexibility to craft the roster in their image. And while they took over a franchise that hadn’t won a playoff game in many-a-moon, the cupboard was not entirely bare when they arrived.

If the 2023 Bears aren’t competing for January football, questions can again be seriously asked about the men in charge of football operations in Chicago, including the quarterback. But in the meantime, we will all try and find minor joys in a season replete with minor expectations. This team needs to play hard. They need to play fast. They need to display, on Sundays and not Thursdays, they are a well-coached group. They need to show fight, even when they are undermanned talent-wise. And perhaps most importantly, they need to provide entertainment to a fan base tired of being bored to death when they turn on their televisions to watch Chicago Bears football.

After all the mediocrity, that’s not too much to ask from 2022. In 2023, we’ll all expect much, much more.

[REDACTED] is not some source I have cultivated through years of letter writing (yes, that’s how I started doing it) and emails. [REDACTED] is a guy from my neighborhood who just happens to be very high up in an NFL organization. We found ourselves together in our local this weekend and I took the opportunity to ask him some questions. I didn’t record him, but I did take notes. These answers are constructed from those notes.

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DBB: Bears fans on Twitter seem obsessed with proving Justin Fields is good. What does the league think of him after his rookie season?

[REDACTED]: I was talking to [ALSO REDACTED, BUT HE INTERVIEWED FOR BEARS GM JOB] the other day and he might be Fields’ biggest fan. But man, even he can’t get a handle on the 2021 tape. The word he used was “nonsensical”. One of our pro personnel guys recommended we throw out his rookie year and start over with him in September. I think Bears fans would be wise to do the same.

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DBB: You have been part of two organizations at this stage of their process. Twice you’ve come into a franchise and started a “rebuild”. But in both instances, you guys got to select your quarterback. How does having a first-round QB here already change the dynamic for Ryan Poles?

[REDACTED]: It doesn’t. They will evaluate Fields like they would any young player, and that evaluation started the second they walked into the building. Ryan could have taken the Minnesota job, convinced them to move on from Kirk, which wouldn’t have been that hard, and drafted his own quarterback next year in a great quarterback class. He didn’t. He thinks Fields can be his guy. I agree with him. But he has the luxury of being able to move on from Fields too.

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DBB: What is the biggest concern for a team like the Bears in 2022? What will the front office be worrying about?

[REDACTED]: Great question.

DBB: Thank you. You want another Guinness?

[REDACTED]: Yea, one more.

DBB: Brogie, back up [REDACTED]!

Brogie: Ah, back your arse up!

[REDACTED]: The fear is everyone not buying into “the project” and that usually means older guys. Robert Quinn knows he’s not part of the long-term there and that’s why you’re hearing rumblings about him wanting out. Locker rooms can get away from you fast. The best course is just clearing out as many guys as you can when you arrive. You want a roster in that first year where all 53 think they are on the ground floor; that THEY are building something. Poles has done that pretty well. You get a young, hungry team that believes in their coaches and what they’re doing, you’ll end up winning more games than you expect. 

Training camp for the 2022 Chicago is now next week, and thus this seems the appropriate time to think about the questions that will need answering over the coming month. Do these questions require urgent reply? Not necessarily. 2022 is not an urgent season. But just because it’s not an urgent season – a season defined by lofty expectations – does not mean it lacks import.

Here are some questions worth considering.

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Question #1. Can the offense resemble a professional unit? 

Dannehy did a nice job detailing the first-year struggles of this offense historically, and it would be unfair not to expect those same troubles here. The offensive coordinator has never done the job. The quarterback is on his third offense in three years. The team is going need solid production from a third-round wide receiver and a fifth-round left tackle. None of these elements are dealbreakers but they portend a period of struggle.

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Question #2. Are the kids alright in the secondary?

The Bears are assuming Jaylon Johnson and Eddie Jackson will be just fine. (Jackson back into a defense that fits his skills is a huge bonus.) But if the same can be said for rookie Kyler Gordon and Jaquan Brisker, the secondary goes from one of the team’s weakest units in 2021 to one of its strengths in 2022. There will be a lot of bullshit emanating from training camp about young players. There always is. But the narrative arc of a professional career usually begins that first summer. And expectations are high for Gordon and Brisker.

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Question #3. How does the offensive line shake out?

This is probably the most pertinent question facing the Bears this summer because, right now, everybody is just guessing. Is Braxton Jones going to anchor the blindside? Is Larry Borom going to start over Teven Jenkins? If Borom usurps Jenkins, does that kick Jenkins inside? No franchise wants to enter camp with this much uncertainty across the whole of their offensive line but that is where the 2022 Chicago Bears find themselves.

Yep, I just posted

Haikus only, for a week

Are you not impressed?

Where does Teven play?

Will a fifth-round tackle start?

Big questions upfront.

Patience, tough to find

In a desperate fan base.

It is needed now.

Orlovsky believes

the Bears have failed Justin Fields.

Is Dan ever right?

HEY, LORI LIGHTFOOT!

Want to keep the Bears in town?

Answer your damn phone.

Football will start being relevant again in the coming weeks. But not yet. Here are some links.

• The tragedy at Highland Park left a two-year-old boy orphaned. Learn his story and read how you can lend a hand in helping his future is financially secure. A donation has already been made by DBB, on behalf of our readers.
• Apparently, Lori Lightfoot is finally (a) taking the threat of a Bears move seriously and (b) answering her damn telephone when Ted Phillips calls. The city is now preparing their pitch to keep the Bears at Soldier Field. Do I want a dome on Soldier Field? No. But I certainly prefer that to the team moving to Arlington Heights and a dome seems to be how Lightfoot will rationale the expenditure for the city.
• From John Dietz in the Daily Herald: “Nickol Knoll Golf Club, which opened in 1995, dedicated a spot on the third hole to former Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton. During Payton’s playing days he would spend his off-season training in this area, running up a steep vertical hill that stretched 50-60 yards.”
• Still mindboggling that Chicago is not hosting the World Cup in 2026, after withdrawing from consideration in 2018. The statement from Rahm’s government at the time still makes no sense: “FIFA could not provide a basic level of certainty on some major unknowns that put our city and taxpayers at risk,” the statement said.” Soldier Field’s intimacy – seen as a negative on the football side now – is a major boon for a soccer match. And the World Cup doesn’t just bring a financial windfall to host cities, it also brings an emotional energy and enthusiasm Chicago could certainly use.
• ACTUAL BEAR NEWS:
  • This bear took a dip in a backyard pool.
  • This bear is doing what many of us in this part of the world do during the summer: hanging down the Jersey shore.
  • This bear hitched a ride on his mama’s back.
  • Oh, and scientists now believe that climate change will decrease hibernation periods for bears and lead to more human interaction.
• Back to the Daily Herald: “Former Cubs and White Sox player Gene Hiser has been involved with the Chicago Baseball Cancer Charities golf event for 48 years. It’s back after a two-year hiatus and will be played July 14 at Twin Orchard Country Club in Long Grove.” The event benefits some great causes, including Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Children’s Oncology Services and the One Step at a Time Camp in Wisconsin. CLICK HERE to register.