A commentator criticizes the Chicago Bears, jeopardizing their playoff chances in 2024.
The Chicago Bears and their fans have every reason to be enthusiastic about the team’s future. Not only do they have a young, strong nucleus and the recent addition of veteran talent such as Keenan Allen, D’Andre Swift, and Ryan Bates (among others) via trade and free agency, but they also have two first-round picks in the upcoming draft, one of which is the overall number one pick.
That particular number-one pick will allow them to select USC’s blue-chip quarterback prospect Caleb Williams, whom many experts regard as a generational talent and potential franchise-altering presence. Heck, the young man is already being compared to titans like Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes.
How could you not be charged with positivity as a Bears fan? But, as is often the case, someone has to come along and pour some ice cold water on your head, completely spoiling your mood. Are the Chicago Bears facing a cold reality? In this example, that “someone” is Joy Taylor from Fox Sports One’s Speak. Taylor recently mocked the notion that Caleb Williams would arrive and quickly elevate the Bears to postseason contention.
“So which team in the NFC is going to fall off so much that it’s going to provide an opportunity for Caleb Williams to come in and win four more games as a rookie in a very tough division?” Taylor inquired rhetorically. “Did all of the other teams disappear from the planet? “Do they exist? “What we think of this division is not real, it is a very tough division.” “The Packers beat the Cowboys down on the road in the playoffs, the Lions went to the NFC championship game,” she said. “These clubs have momentum, experience, and postseason success. They have quarterbacks that are returning. They became better. They’re in the Bears’ division.
“So it’s not about what I believe Caleb Williams is capable of doing. It’s simply that I can’t seem to ignore that other teams are good, that they are in the division, and that they have lately accomplished tremendous things.” That certainly is a bucket of ice-cold water. But what Taylor did next was vicious to the point of “kicking a man when he’s down” nasty. Is there no winning culture in Chicago?
“And I just can’t dismiss what everyone else has been building to accommodate for one player that’s going to a team that has no culture, that has no history of winning as of late, whose coach we do not know is a good head coach, to all of these new additions — new additions by the way are all on paper, have not all played together,” she said with a smirk. Even with Chicago’s new recruits and Mr. Everything Caleb Williams leading the way as the team’s starting quarterback, oddsmakers tend to agree with Taylor, projecting that the Bears will win only 8.5 games this season, up only one or two from last season’s 7-10 record.
Fortunately, they play the games on the field, not on paper. Things can change quickly in the NFL, and the Bears are hoping to force some immediate change. We will see.