I had already figured it out; it all makes sense. After another loss on Sunday, the Bears continue to execute the script to perfection. I didn’t necessarily realize it was in place before the season started; I wouldn’t have bet on the over 6.5 win total if I knew it then, that’s for sure. I honestly thought the Bears would have a good season this year, good meaning winning games; this season is turning out to be good for different reasons. But yeah, the wins… I can go week by week through the losses and talk about woulda, coulda, shoulda… and I would be right. I mean, even if 1 play goes the other way in most of our losses, we could be looking at those wins… THIS year. But no… remember what I said weeks ago: winning too early will ruin the final recipe. Ryan Poles made sure that this would NOT be the case after the loss against the Cowboys. He had seen enough; he had seen enough progress from Fields and the offense to be satisfied. Yeah, the whole winning thing… we’ll learn to do that next year, or at least we hope. You see, that’s the whole thing, the biggest thing missing right now… the wins. If you believe the Bears can flip the script and get those wins next year, after only getting 3 this year… it’s a leap of faith for sure. For now though, the patience on the wins has propelled us to the 3rd pick in the draft; like I said, good for different reasons. With all the draft picks and cap size, how much better will this Bears team be talentwise on the field next year? Light years…
I did know what the most important thing coming into this year was: the development of Fields. Are we not entertained? Yeah, he’s lead the Bears in passing AND rushing yards in 6 of the last 7 games; he’s legit… I’m happy. And now, just like I said, he’ll be missing some time due to a “minor injury”. He kept holding that left shoulder; is it really hurt that bad? Hope not… but it will be hurt just enough for him to miss some time. This defense can only carry so much of this losing load; they have been doing a bang up job though. They actually did hold our opponent, the Falcons, under 30 points in this one for the first time since Roquan was sent packing; 7 tackles and 1 sack today for the Ravens. 31 ppg given up since then, just enough for the Bears offense to not keep up. And if it got too close to call, like it has, even this week, we had our ace in the hole, to help ensure our path to the top of the draft board was uninterrupted by some silly win. Yeah, the refs… they’re with us, even though it feels like they’re against us. I can point to calls in each of the last 3 games that helped ice our loss. I guess we should be saying thank you???
It really can’t be playing out any better for our Bears this year, even though the standings say otherwise. At 3-8, the Bears are 6 losses from complete execution; only the Houston Texans appear out of range for us. Heck, we can maybe even win a game (December 4th?), and not negatively impact our draft position. Couple things though… I don’t like throwing in the towel any year, and secondly, when do we learn how to win? Obviously we’ll be in it to win it next year, but since we’ve only tasted it 3, 4 times this year… crossing the bridge to the other side, the winning side, the playoff side, is my biggest concern; so… if we get around to that next year, assuming we won’t be great at it, the earliest we’ll be looking at making the playoffs is 2024? How much patience do you have? I’ve actually seen a Super Bowl in my lifetime, and I don’t have any patience; I can’t even imagine everybody 36 years and younger who haven’t… If we’re on board, we’re on board for the whole ride, right? Right, and this ride never ends. Bear Down!
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