With two games remaining in the 2022 season, the Chicago Bears are only a half-game out of the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NFL draft. Could that play into their decision making down the stretch? And could the rebuild start to bear fruit as soon as next season? Brad Biggs tackles these questions and more in his weekly Bears mailbag.
In Sunday’s column, you gave the impression that there is almost no core of players Ryan Poles can build upon for next season and that it could take two to three years to build the Bears into a contender. Yet a number of games were lost by relatively small margins, which would suggest the Bears should win significantly more games next year and perhaps make the playoffs. Are you perhaps being too negative about the current roster and the chances for next year? — Russ T., Palos Heights
There’s a lot to work through here, and we might as well start with the close games you reference. The Bears led the Buffalo Bills 10-6 at halftime Saturday before being blown out in the final 30 minutes. These recent games had narrow margins:
- Dec. 18: 25-20 loss to Philadelphia Eagles (Bears trailed 17-13 entering fourth quarter)
- Dec. 4: 28-19 loss to Green Bay Packers (Bears led 19-10 entering fourth quarter)
- Nov. 20: 27-24 loss at Atlanta (Falcons kicked winning field goal with 1:52 remaining)
- Nov. 13: 31-30 loss to Detroit Lions (Bears led 24-10 entering fourth quarter)
- Nov. 6: 35-32 loss to Miami Dolphins (Justin Fields ran for 178 yards and a touchdown and threw three TD passes)
The Bears also have lost four games by 17 points or more for the first time since 2014. They haven’t been able to pull out a close game since Cairo Santos’ field goal on the final play toppled the woeful Houston Texans 23-20 in Week 3 at Soldier Field. They’ve shown a clear lack of players who can make game-changing plays in critical moments.
Some believe (or hope) this is part of the master plan as the Bears lose their way to the highest possible draft pick. With two games to play and the Bears within a half-game of the Texans for the No. 1 pick, who knows if it is a point of discussion at Halas Hall. Previously, I can promise you losing has not been the team’s goal. You’d know that if you were there when Poles shook the table in the press box at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta after Falcons defensive back Jaylinn Hawkins intercepted Fields with 67 seconds remaining.
Bad teams find ways to pull out games here and there, and the Bears are a bad team mired in an eight-game losing streak, tied for the longest in one season in club history.
The loss to the Eagles was one of the better games the Bears have played, even though Jalen Hurts threw for 315 yards and wide receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith both topped 100 receiving yards. The Bears flat-out blew the game against the Packers, and a narrow loss to a lowly Falcons team doesn’t mean much.
The Lions have have won six of their last eight but were steamrolled Sunday at Carolina in a game with significant playoff implications. The Lions are an average team right now, certainly improved over a year ago. The Dolphins had way more offensive firepower than the Bears in that meeting, but they’ve been exposed for what they are lately, a team with a very scheme-dependent quarterback who has a weak arm.
Bears coach Matt Eberflus has gotten the players to battle hard nearly every week with the exception of a lousy showing in the 31-10 loss to the New York Jets on Nov. 27. He has done so with a very young roster that has gotten younger as the season has worn on and injuries have multiplied. Until late November, the Bears had one of the healthiest rosters in the league. That’s no longer the case, and missing starting guards Cody Whitehair and Teven Jenkins against the Bills was a problem.
When looking to the future — and with two games remaining in a 3-12 season, that’s where the focus has to be — a critical eye is needed unless you simply want to view everything as a glass that’s not just half-full but overflowing.
NFL teams often color-code players in pro scouting to get an idea of a roster’s strengths and weaknesses. There are many variations and everyone has their own little twist (some use numbers), but the bottom line is they’re evaluating players relative to others at the same position leaguewide.
A color-coded scheme goes blue, red, purple and orange, often with a plus or minus to differentiate even further. Blue is an elite player who can start for any team, a perennial Pro Bowl talent. Red is a solid NFL starter. Purple is a reliable backup-level player. He can start and do OK but ultimately you’d like an upgrade. Orange is a fringe backup living on the edge of the roster. That can be a veteran just hanging on because he has experience or a younger player who lacks experience and hasn’t shown enough in practice to warrant more playing time.
What makes it challenging to forecast success for the Bears in 2023 is this roster doesn’t have a lot of blue — and maybe doesn’t have a single blue. As exciting as Fields has been this season, you won’t find a personnel man in the league who evaluates him in that manner until the passing game takes leaps and bounds forward. Maybe that will happen with an overhauled offensive line and better skill-position players, but it hasn’t occurred yet and Fields has only six 200-yard passing games in 24 career starts.
Jenkins might be the closest thing the Bears have to a blue on offense, but he’s not there either when you consider he has missed 14 of a possible 32 games in his career.
On defense, free safety Eddie Jackson in his prime was a blue. He worked his way back in that direction this season until a Lisfranc ligament injury against the Jets shut him down. Weak-side linebacker Roquan Smith was certainly a blue. He was traded.
The Bears have some young players who could become red in the near future and maybe one ascends and becomes blue, but that is a ways off. Cornerback Kyler Gordon and safety Jaquan Brisker, the team’s top picks in April, have looked better as the season has played out. Gordon did a nice job against Bills wide receiver Stefon Diggs. They should be core players moving forward. But what the franchise has right now is an overabundance of orange.
The Bears will have a better roster next season. Fields will be in position to be more successful. Some of the young players who have gotten a ton of experience in 2022 will be better for it. They should get some good talent in the draft and will be in position to be aggressive in free agency. I don’t know how many blues will be on the open market. Probably fewer than you imagine.
This is why I think you’re looking at a prolonged process to get back to a legitimate contending level. Could Poles crush it this offseason and spark a dramatic turnaround? Sure, that’s possible, especially if Fields makes huge gains. A blue quarterback would make an unbelievable difference. Once you have that, the quarterback raises the level of play of the players around him. But for Poles to absolutely nail the offseason, he would have to hit all over the place and stumble into a few pleasant surprises.
Looking back at the 2002 Bears, the last time they had an eight-game losing streak, that team had three blues: middle linebacker Brian Urlacher, center Olin Kreutz and free safety Mike Brown. There were a handful of solid reds: wide receiver Marty Booker, pass rusher Rosevelt Colvin and defensive linemen Phillip Daniels and Bryan Robinson. Alex Brown was a rookie who would become a red. The 2003 draft produced an elite linebacker in Lance Briggs and a very good cornerback in Charles Tillman, and the Bears were on their way to rebuilding.
When you step back and evaluate the current depth chart — and when you see the surplus of elite players that recent opponents such as the Bills and Eagles have — you get a better idea of how far off the Bears are from doing more than trying to wiggle into the playoffs with a record near .500 at this time next year.
With the Bills’ success limiting Justin Fields’ ability to run, did they figure something out that will be copied by other teams going forward? — Jim A., Plymouth, Minn.
No. There isn’t a blueprint for shutting down a quarterback as dynamic, powerful and fast as Fields when it comes to running the ball. No one has solved Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson in the running game, and that’s because these guys possess rare and exciting traits. The Bills did a really nice job against Fields, and the first thing I would point out is the volume was low — he had only seven carries resulting in 11 yards. The Leslie Frazier-directed defense is a good one and the Bills were well-prepared.
Fields rushed for a ridiculous 806 yards in his previous eight games, an amazing stretch that included a 178-yard game against the Dolphins and a 147-yard effort against the Lions. That kind of wild run — and it was wild — was going to be difficult to sustain. It’s a little jarring when you see Fields’ running ability corralled because the offense doesn’t move the ball or score if he’s not making plays with his legs — long runs or key first-down conversions.
The Bills did a really good job of identifying when Fields was trying to get to the perimeter, and they got numbers there. They are really talented on the edges with linebackers Matt Milano and Tremaine Edmunds and nickel cornerback Taron Johnson. The Bills base defense is a nickel package and they have a lot of players with excellent range at the second level, which helps in defending a running quarterback like Fields.
One thing I heard in the Bills locker room after the game is that they wanted Fields to have to run laterally first. That’s a great plan. It’s one thing to draw that up as a goal, it’s another to execute it. They didn’t want Fields to get downhill, which is when he can be unstoppable. That’s like any run. A defense wants to squeeze the space to create better pursuit angles and allow the second-level defenders to play with more speed and take proper force and cut-off angles. Do that, and there’s really nowhere to go.
I would look for Fields to have a lot more success running Sunday against the Lions at Ford Field. They are last in the NFL in defending quarterback runs, and while they can try to borrow from what the Bills did, they don’t have the same personnel. As is often the case, it’s more about Jimmys and Joes than X’s and O’s.
Was the last Buffalo TD almost piling on? Seems these days most teams take a knee in that situation. Did anyone ask about it after the game? — Phil S.
I did not hear anyone ask about the Bills’ last score. Josh Allen rolled right on a play fake on fourth-and-3 from the Bears 13-yard line. With no space to run as strong safety Jaquan Brisker came up to play him — I’m guessing Allen keeping the ball was the first plan — he threw to wide-open tight end Dawson Knox. It looked to me like Knox tried to slide and give himself up, but he was at the goal line so it was a touchdown.
My hunch is the Bills would have kneeled in that situation had Matt Eberflus not used his final timeout with 1:54 remaining and the Bills facing third-and-7 at the 17. The Bills were leading 28-13 at the time, and I think the Buffalo sideline was a little surprised the Bears used the timeout there. Had the Bears not stopped the clock, the Bills could have kneeled twice and turned the ball over on downs with about 34 seconds to play.
There are unwritten rules here — and because they’re unwritten, I’m doing my best to interpret them — but if the Bears had given up and kept the timeout in their pocket, the Bills would have stopped trying to move the ball. When the Bears used that final timeout, it was fair game. Again, I do believe Knox tried to go down before the end zone, but he was too far downfield and the Bills went ahead 35-13 with 1:02 remaining.
I know teams don’t intentionally lose, but how do Ryan Poles and Matt Eberflus NOT let getting the first overall pick creep into their decision making the last two weeks? Having the first pick and trading it would be a major franchise changer. — @tn5280
That’s a good question, and I wonder if — behind closed doors — the Bears will consider the possibilities with two games remaining. It’s the same conversation the Texans, a half-game ahead of the Bears for the No. 1 pick, could be having. Certainly the higher the pick, the better positioned Poles would be to add a difference maker to the roster or get a haul of picks in return in a trade.
It’s premature to say how hot the market will be for quarterbacks at the top of the draft. You’re going to get mixed reviews on Bryce Young, Will Levis and C.J. Stroud. Quarterbacks are almost always overdrafted, and it takes only one team to fall in love with a guy. How high will these quarterbacks go and how motivated will teams be to pursue them? I don’t know. I’d hardly call it a slam dunk that Poles will have offers he can’t refuse to trade his pick, whether it’s No. 1 or 2 or even 3. But it’s certainly a possibility, and history shows that type of trade can generate a lot in return.
You look at the depth chart right now, and besides Justin Fields, who would the Bears sit out to enhance their chances of losing? Eberflus made it clear Monday that not playing Fields isn’t even a point of discussion. Fields was deemed to be fine after his foot was stepped on late in the Bills game.
“Absolutely not,” Eberflus said when asked if thought had been given to shutting down Fields. “We’ve got to get better. We want to improve. We want to see where we are.
“These last two games matter. They’re division opponents, very important to our football team to see the competition, to see guys compete against our division. It’s important for each man, it’s important for each unit and it’s important for our whole football team.”
Eberflus said he sees value in winning the next two games against the Lions and Minnesota Vikings — victories that likely would drop the team in the draft order.
“I would see value in that,” he said. “Because we have to learn how to finish. We’re at the game (Saturday), you saw it, right? It was fourth quarter, eight minutes to go, it was 21-13, right? We’ve got the ball and we’ve got to learn how to finish. We have to finish there.”
I would swear officials are letting more contact from defensive backs go in coverage this year. Is that a thing or am I imagining it? — @bearingthenews
Good question. Defensive pass interference penalties are down marginally this season. In 240 games through Week 16, 201 DPI calls had been enforced and 23 were declined or not marked off because of offsetting penalties.
Last season, in 272 games, DPI was enforced 264 times and 44 calls were not enforced. So the NFL has gone from an average of 1.13 DPI calls per game in 2021 to 0.93 this season. The Kansas City Chiefs have been called for a league-high 14 DPI penalties with two not enforced. The Bears have been called for DPI eight times, about the league average, with one not enforced. Interestingly, the Falcons have not been called for DPI once.
Is that a result of officials letting defenders use more physical play downfield or just a blip? That’s hard to say. We’re not talking about a large discrepancy, and an uptick in calls over the next two weeks could bring the numbers closer together.
Why did the play calling feel so simplistic or watered down vs. Buffalo? — @richhalsall24
Anything that was watered down Saturday was immediately turning to ice. I saw a decent amount of criticism of offensive coordinator Luke Getsy after the loss to the Bills and I didn’t feel it was warranted. The Bears were without both starting guards and wide receivers Darnell Mooney, Chase Claypool and Equanimeous St. Brown. At full strength this hasn’t been a potent offense, with the notable exception of an impressive four-game stretch in the middle of the season. Missing 40% of the offensive line and arguably the top three wide receivers, Getsy had huge issues to deal with. He has been impressive this season in a lot of ways, and I don’t think it’s worthwhile or accurate to pile on him in this situation.
Some questions sought comment on defensive coordinator Alan Williams and the struggles on that side of the ball. Maybe it’s not the response folks want, but how can you evaluate Williams, the scheme and the fit when the defense lacks playmakers on all three levels? Sort of a pointless exercise. Let’s see how they coach when the roster is stronger.
If the Bears get the No. 1 pick, do you think the Lions would trade up for a QB? — @mrbrooks265
One of the bigger surprises during this year’s draft was when the Vikings agreed to trade the 12th pick to the Lions, who moved up to select Alabama wide receiver Jameson Williams. He would have been a slam-dunk top-10 selection had he not suffered a torn ACL in the national championship game last January. The Lions sent a first-round pick (No. 32), a second-rounder (No. 34) and a third-rounder (No. 66) to the Vikings for the 12th pick and a second-rounder (No. 46).
It was a bit of a stunner because intradivision trades during the draft are uncommon, especially in Round 1. The Vikings gave the Lions the opportunity to draft a playmaker who could be a force in the NFC North for years to come.
I bring this up because if the Bears were to trade with the Lions so that Detroit GM Brad Holmes could take a quarterback, that could create issues for Ryan Poles for years to come. The Lions do have extra draft capital. They own the Los Angeles Rams’ first-round pick (currently No. 7), and their own pick slots at No. 18. What if a trade up with the Bears for a quarterback turns out to be the move that helps the Lions finally solve the curse of Bobby Layne?
Layne broke in with the Bears in 1948, and they mistakenly didn’t keep him. He helped the Lions win three NFL titles in six years (1952, ‘53 and ‘57). Legend has it that after the Lions traded Layne to the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1958 for quarterback Earl Morrall and two draft picks, Layne said the Lions “would not win for 50 years.” They were the defending champion at the time and are 1-12 in the postseason since dealing Layne. The quote never has been attributed directly to Layne, but maybe the curse is real.
Provided Ryan Poles sticks to his expressed goal of rebuilding the Bears into a perennial contender, how do you think the encroaching prospect of a massive contract extension for Justin Fields affects his strategy going forward? The Bears have already effectively wasted two years of Fields’ rookie contract and you have stated it may take two offseasons minimum for Poles to field a legitimate playoff-caliber roster. Will this in any way constrain his free-agent spending in 2023 despite the teams’ voluminous cap space? — David D., Arlington Heights
Fields is not eligible for a second contract until after the 2023 season. I don’t think his contract status affects any decisions in the offseason ahead. The Bears need to get better across the board — on offense and defense — and I’d be stunned if they are not loaded with cap space again after next season. Poles has more than $100 million in cap space for the coming offseason, so much that I don’t even think he’ll use it all. The Bears can make a flurry of moves and still have plenty of operating room moving forward.
What is the ideal scenario to make the Bears’ Week 18 game a “must win” for Minnesota? Obviously, draftniks want the Bears to lose that game and don’t want any Vikings starters possibly being rested. — Jerry L., Chicago
The best-case scenario would be if the Vikings come to Soldier Field still in the hunt for the No. 1 seed in the NFC. At 12-3 they’re one game behind the Eagles (13-2), who would win a tiebreaker between the teams. The Vikings would have to win Sunday in Green Bay and at Soldier Field and have the Eagles lose to the New Orleans Saints and New York Giants.
The Vikings are one game ahead of the San Francisco 49ers (11-4) for the No. 2 seed. The Niners also would win a tiebreaker with the Vikings, so to nail down the second spot, the Vikings have to remain a game better.
The No. 2 seed isn’t nearly as significant as it was in the previous postseason format, in which it meant a first-round bye. I don’t know how much emphasis Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell would place on being the second seed. Based on the current standings, the No. 2 seed would host the Washington Commanders in the wild-card round and the No. 3 seed would host the Giants. We’ll have to wait and see what kind of approach the Vikings take to the Week 18 game.
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