Entering the very late bye of Week 14, the Chicago Bears sported a humbling 3-10 record. The .231 percentage had Chicago ranked as the lowest team in the NFC, on par with the Denver Broncos, and only below the 1-11 Houston Texans. It’s not great company for a team with a good share of high-quality talents.
Regardless, this was never meant to be the season that the Bears surged towards the playoffs, as the CBS Sports preseason predictions suggest. In the NFC North, the Green Bay Packers were meant to be the top contender, but the Minnesota Vikings bulked up and the Detroit Lions are starting to realize the quality of the players at the team’s disposal.
Even if three wins were to be the final count for the Bears this season, it hasn’t been all bad. The 270 points for coming out of the bye was seven better than the Aaron Rodgers-led Packers, which is always nice. With five games lost by seven or fewer points, some by less than a field goal, the Bears certainly showed up more than the record would suggest.
There have been bright spots dotted around the 2022 season for Chicago, even if the season will end with the 17th game. Importantly, there’s good reason to be optimistic next season, especially once a high draft pick is secured.
Injuries and working out the receiver room
While the Chicago Bears have been able to stay mostly healthy overall, little irritating injuries have popped up at inconvenient times. Justin Fields missing one, Khalil Herbert going down just as he looked set to almost take the backfield for his own, and the double knockout of Bears defensive backs Kyler Gordon and Jaquan Brisker for two games all contributed to a somewhat stop-start feeling around the Bears this season.
Overall, though, the good take is that most key players and up-and-coming stars have been able to play the majority of the games. That said, this makes the receiving space that much more baffling. Darnell Mooney and Cole Kmet have become the main targets for Fields, sharing 111 targets over 13 games, but behind them, it’s anyone’s guess with Equanimeous St. Brown, Dante Pettis, and Chase Claypool seemingly the frontrunners of the other six or so candidates, but is largely ineffective.
Ground game gathering speed
If there’s been one outright shining light for the ’22 Bears, it’s been the run game. Perhaps the only frustrating element has been that Herbert hasn’t been allowed to take full command just yet. David Montgomery hit 641 yards and a 4.0 average through 12 starts. Herbert, in one start and ten games, collected 643 yards and a 6.0 average. To Montgomery’s credit, he’s picked up in the passing game, collecting 25 of 30 targets for a 9.8 average.
Of course, the star of the show has been Fields. Yahoo reports that Fields is hitting the highest yards per carry mark in a single season of any player at 125 carries coming into the bye. Accompanying this, a historic average of 7.1 yards per carry, as well as a franchise-record 67-yard stomp to score a touchdown against the Miami Dolphins.
However, one of the reasons why the receiving corps has been relatively hit-or-miss has been Fields getting hurried – which has also encouraged his absurd rushing figures. At the start of the season, the Bears’ O-line ranked nearly dead last, but legend Olin Kreutz sees flashes of potential from Teven Jenkins, perhaps even enough to one day earn him a Pro Bowl nod.
It’s been very slow going as far as a football season goes, but the starting set of Jenkins, Riley Reiff, Sam Mustipher, Cody Whitehair, and Braxton Jones has undoubtedly improved a great deal throughout the season. The number of pressures put on Fields has waned as the games have ticked along, and space is being made for the ground game to flourish.
Tanking for an opportunistic draft day
With four games to go, the Bears were tasked with facing the two leading Super Bowl contenders – the Buffalo Bills and Philadelphia Eagles – and then their divisional leaders. First to come, the Detroit Lions, somehow knocking around the wild card contention. Then, the leaders, the Vikings. Earlier in the season, the Bears lost by a single point to the Lions, and by seven to Minnesota.
So, it won’t come as a surprise that even the platform with the highest rating among all Illinois sports betting outlets was fairly undecided on the Bears even getting one more win. Also offering a $1,000 risk-free bet, the 9.6-rated BetMGM had the bears at -200 to get over 3.5 wins this season and +165 to remain on three. For the Bears, staying under that three-win mark wouldn’t be the worst thing.
As it stands, Chicago would likely get the second overall pick – even higher than when the team landed linebacker Chuck Howley. Naturally, the first-overall Texans would take the top quarterback, leaving the Bears with a potential star pass rusher, Will Anderson. However, with bolstering protection for Fields surely the priority, and the offensive lineman going mid-round in most mock drafts, perhaps a trade for even more value could come in.
All-in-all, 2022 is going to go down as a building season, and there’s been plenty to have Bears fans optimistic for the future.
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