Chicago Bears wrap up

I'm way overdue for writing this post.  So now that the SuperBowl is over, I will wrap up the Chicago Bears posts until next season.  Anyone who pays attention to football knows that the Bears not only went to the playoffs but won the Wild Card round against their archrival, the Green Bay Packers in overtime.  

Katness and I often text each other during Bears games, and for 3 quarters the messages can be summed up as "WTF?" followed by "how did they pull that off" when they win the 4th quarter.  Same with that crazy wild card game.

In the divisional round, they also forced overtime.  It really came down to one bad play that turned the momentum to the LA Rams, and our season ended.  

Had they won against LA, how would they do against the Seattle Seahawks?  No way of knowing.  We were playing with House Money on Borrowed Time.  This season seems to have been the Sam Darnold Renaissance story, so they might have held in but not won.  

And that also might be evidence that the NFL isn't fixed or rigged, or whatever. I'm not saying they aren't in bed with online gambling (the muffed extra point in the Houston - Steelers game), but I've said it before: if the NFL were rigged, NY, LA, Dallas, Chicago, and DC would be in the playoffs every year.

So what's next?  First, I have to get through 162 games of Cubs Baseball, of which I will only watch a fraction.  Then I have to see if this season was a fluke or if the Bears build on what they have.  Caleb Williams is a franchise QB.  I'm not skilled enough to know if our offensive line is fine or could use one more better player.  However, our defense, while showing flashes of brilliance, still needs some help.  

So we wait until the Draft and Free Agency 1.0 and 2.0 are over.  

2025 Bears: We both went 11 and 6

The regular season is over and we Bears fans have one playoff game to look forward to.  With the way they played the Lions on Sunday, we fans aren't exactly holding our breath for a playoff win.  

They ended the season the way they started, by losing two games.  But in between, they won 11 games and that was good enough to win a division where every team had a winning record.

I had them going 9 and 8 but my prediction of how they would do for each game came out to 11 and 6.  

Of the 17 games they played, I was able to watch 12 of them.  It would have been 10 but I was in Chicago for the game against Pittsburg and I also have the streaming service the SNF game against the 49ers was on.

The Bears were mostly fun to watch this season and I said at one point, this team reminds me of the lucky 2001 team that also won the 2nd Seed (when it had a bye week same as the number 1 seed) and then went on to lose it's first game to the Eagles.  

This year the Bears play Green Bay in the Wild Card round at Soldier Field.  The Packers are banged up and lost 4 in a role, which makes them dangerous.  IF, if the Bears can get past them again, they could face the 49ers again, the Rams, the Panthers or the Eagles.  

2023 Bears: It's Over, thank God

 The Chicago Bears have now finished their 2013 season with a record of 7 - 10.  So this is a final check-in with my with my 2023 predictions.

Thus my record is 11-6.  Much better than the Bears 7 -10.  I guess it says something that they were technically in the playoff hunt until Week 17 but it was over when they blew the double-digit lead against the Browns in Week 16.

* games I didn't make an exact prediction but did lean a certain way. 

They beat 5 bad teams (Commanders, Raiders, Panthers, Cardinals and Falcons) and 2 teams that had bad days (Vikings and Lions) and should have beat those two twice.  They blew 3 games with double digit leads and lost two more that were close.

While I enjoy football and love my Bears, as I get older I cannot afford to wait for next season.  Each week that goes by is a week I'm closer to eventually checking out of this mortal coil.  Are they gonna move on from Justin Fields and reset the rebuild clock?  Probably.

Remember, Justin Fields -- who has done nothing but display more grace and class than anyone inside Halas Hall -- was a last-ditch effort for Coach Nagy and GM Pace to save their jobs.  I think he is among the better quarterbacks we have seldom seen at Halas Hall.  Is he elite?  I don't know.  I'd say he's better than Kyle Orton and we won a lot of games with neckbeard.

But every coach wants their QB.  Every GM wants their coach.  We are flirting with bringing Jim Harbaugh in as head coach and if that happens, he is gonna want to rebuild with his people.

The Bears have the #1 draft pick again (along with #9) so they can trade Fields to a QB hungry team, trade the First Pick for a haul and still nabe a quality QB and possibly even Marvin Harrison Jr.  That kind of opportunity only comes along once in a blue moon.  

I just don't know how long I'll be around to see it.