Some random thoughts about the Chicago Bears and other things, mostly football-related as we count down the hours until we get to watch this team play football again:
So I may have gotten a little bit ahead of myself tracking the Bears to eclipse the single season scoring record set by the Denver Broncos at 606 points. Ben Johnson’s stated goal and the 59 point showing in Week 1 got me dreaming big. Now, with the Caleb Williams injury and the terrible Week 2 showing, I’m feeling whiplash.
A lot has
been said about the Caleb Williams injury and I’ll just say, I was thinking we were dealing with an Achilles tear and how the rest of the season was essentially over. Incredible news that Caleb is looking at a condensed rehab and will hopefully be back on the field by the Green Bay game in Week 5.
Garrett Bradbury might have had the worst day of anyone on Sunday. I know Ben Johnson wants that veteran presence at center, but Logan Jones has the hairline of someone who has refinanced his mortgage – I think he can step in and do the job. To give Bradbury some benefit of the doubt here, the wet conditions seemed to really mess with his game – extra concentration to complete the snap combined with bad footing put him in conflict all day.
The autumnal equinox has come and gone, and we are officially in the fall season. I have failed to complete my summer checklist for the umpteenth year in a row, but this year was particularly bad with the heat and humidity. Good riddance.
I’ve been impressed with the rookie defensive backs thus far. Dillon Thieneman and Malik Muhammad have both played well in their first NFL action. Maybe not a surprise for Thieneman, the first rounder, but Muhammad stepping in early has been a pleasant surprise. This secondary will be tested with this schedule so it’s nice to see early returns on the rookies.
Speaking of rookies, the second Ben Johnson draft class has had mixed results with Sam Roush’s poor Week 2 performance and Zavion Thomas’s lack of snaps. But that’s what September football is all about – figuring out what you have and what you don’t. Remember, Luther Burden was brought along slowly last year before catching fire late in the season. Give these guys a chance.
I drafted Colston Loveland in the third round of the redraft fantasy football league I’ve been in forever. Let’s just say that the early returns aren’t great on that investment.
It sure felt like the Bears paid some additional penalty tax in that game against the Vikings, particularly that late hit out of bounds on the punt return that didn’t draw a flag. I’ve never seen anything more obvious that didn’t draw a flag in my life. And then the guy flopped and it looked like he might’ve drawn a flag against the Bears before the refs picked it up. That would have been an insane double taxation moment had they marched off 15 against the Bears on a clear Vikings penalty, so I guess we should be thankful for that…
After rewatching the game, I came away with the thought that I’d seen that game before, but in reverse, many times. How many times have the Bears played on a sloppy field that reduced the game to a messy field position game, getting the defensive plays when needed, and pulling out an ugly victory? Seems like a million. Bears fans got a taste of their own medicine as the Bears did have two drives that looked like TDs that came away with zero points. The first ended with a Swift fumble at the goal line. The second was disrupted with the injury to Williams where he had the angle for a score before eventually getting a 23-yard field goal blocked. Ridiculous odds of those two things happening in the same game. Bad luck, hopefully that’s the end of that.
As the Bears shape their new identity under Ben Johnson, does it challenge anyone to think that maybe they would be better off playing in a dome where weather won’t slow down their high-flying offense? Detroit put up those great offenses under Johnson in part because they were never slowed by a bad weather game. Just a thought.
It doesn’t matter because the Bears are never going to actually build a new stadium. They’re just going to keep torturing fans with new updates every few weeks that lead to more annoying questions from everyone you run into on the streets and over the the holidays with family.
I thought Tyrique Stevenson and Jaylon Johnson bounced back after their rough Week 1 performances. I also think both defenses benefitted from the wet conditions. It’ll be a real test on Monday to see if these two can be a viable tandem this year.
Pete Crow Armstrong is going to win the NL MVP this year with an incredible season for the Cubs. The last time the Cubs had an MVP was Kris Bryant in 2016. The Bears haven’t had an MVP since Walter Payton in 1977. In fact, they’ve only had 3 players in their 100+ year history to win the award – Harlon Hill in 1955 won one of the league MVP awards, and Sid Luckman took the honors in 1943. The Cubs have had 5 since Payton won his (Ryne Sandberg, Andre Dawson, Sammy Sosa, Bryant, PCA), and we’re not exactly talking about the most successful baseball team here. I need to see a Bears MVP season in my lifetime.
I dug into the history of the Chicago Bears scoring 50 or more points in the regular season and was shocked (well, it’s the Bears so not that shocked) that they’ve only done it 14 times in their history. And they’ve never done it more than once in a single season. I have a feeling that we’ll soon be talking about number of times Ben Johnson’s Bears have scored 50 versus the rest of Bears history. My money is on Ben to eventually win that one.
