Since the NFL’s inception in the early 1900s, the Chicago Bears have been one of the league’s most popular teams. From their dominance in the 1940s to the legendary 1985 team, the Bears have no shortage of historic teams and players.
However, an illustrious past does little to ease the concerns surrounding the franchise’s future. The Bears have been one of the worst teams in football in recent years and have, for the most part, underperformed in the 21st century.
Years of disappointment
Nearly halfway through the 2023 season, the Bears sit at 1-5 and are in last place in the NFC North. They have a head coach who may be fired after the season and a roster that comprises little talent. The current state of the franchise calls for a rebuild, something that has become all too familiar to Bears fans.
It’s been 16 years since the team appeared in Super Bowl 41, 38 years since their lone championship in the modern era, and 11 years since their last playoff win. Every attempt at revitalizing the franchise, whether hiring new coaches or general managers, has ultimately fallen short.
Though the 2023 regular season is far from over, Bears fans have no choice but to look towards 2024 for change. The team has no chance of competing for anything meaningful and needs major changes.
The Bears will enter the offseason with the most cap space of any team in the league, allowing them to sign marquee-free agents. Additionally, the team has multiple first-round picks in this upcoming draft.
Theoretically, the Bears can make a series of moves to get the franchise back on track. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. It’s not necessarily about your resources; it’s what you do with them.
The Bears have had numerous opportunities to pull themselves out from the gutter and have whiffed repeatedly. Drafting Mitchell Trubisky second overall in 2017, hiring Matt Eberflus as head coach in 2022, and trading for Chase Claypool at last year’s trade deadline are just a few examples of the franchise’s inability to help itself.
A down year or two happens; even five underwhelming seasons can be chalked up to bad luck, but when failing to meet expectations becomes a repeated pattern spanning decades, it becomes part of the team’s identity.
As rich of a history as the Chicago Bears have, most of it comes from a time before the NFL held its first Super Bowl. The Bears of this millennium have added little to the franchise’s lore. The Bears still have a massive fanbase, are highly profitable, and are a staple of Chicago, but the winning culture that has defined the team for decades is nowhere to be found.
A team that once struck fear into the heart of their opponents has been reduced to an irrelevant afterthought. Everyone knows who the Bears are, but outside of Chicago, no one cares about them. They aren’t good and haven’t been for several years. People don’t care about how great the team was during World War II; they value the present, and the Bears have little to offer in that department.
Sports, by their very nature, are often cruel and unfair. Some teams flourish for decades, while others falter, unable to escape the bottom of the standings. While regression and progression to the mean seem inevitable, sports don’t always level out. Some teams just get branded as winners, champions of their craft, while others are deemed losers. The Bears were once the former, but with their most significant accomplishments becoming older by the year, there is growing pressure to recapture that glory.
An Uneasy Fanbase
When someone says, “The possibilities are endless,” it usually has a positive connotation. It’s meant to indicate excitement and potential. In the case of the Chicago Bears, however, it brings an uneasy feeling. For every seemingly positive outcome, there is a negative one to go with it.
There’s a possibility the team misses on their next quarterback and head coaching hire, or they make poor use of their cap space. The longer the Bears’ dysfunction persists, the more prevalent these thoughts become.
For the younger generation of fans, maintaining optimism feels impossible. There are kids in high school who weren’t alive the last time the Bears played in the Super Bowl, and there are full-grown adults who have started families that weren’t alive to see them win it. For us, the Chicago Bears we know are defined by their failures. A team that can’t beat the Packers can’t have consecutive winning seasons and can’t develop a franchise quarterback. These labels seem harsh, but they are entirely accurate.
As fans, we are delusional. No matter how many times our favorite team breaks our hearts, we come back the following Sunday hoping for a different result. The suffering can be dreadful, but it can also be rewarding to watch your team return to the top finally. Even the most pessimistic and cynical fans hold out hope for change.
With that said, it’s impossible to ignore reality altogether. No matter how badly we want to believe in the Bears, recent history says we’re setting ourselves up to get hurt. As a result, many fans have adopted cautious optimism about the team’s future.
“They are in a good position for the future due to draft capital and cap space, but it is up to the team to utilize it correctly, and that’s not a given with the Bears. In the short term, they are a disaster and weak in the trenches,” said Jack Grupka, ‘23.
“The Bears have never been able to find their franchise quarterback. It’s not like they’re the only team that’s had this problem, but it feels like it, and there are times it feels like they’ll never get their guy. But every year, you look ahead at the next group of prospects, hoping to find him. The problem is it’s never that simple. Let’s say the Bears end up with Caleb Williams; who’s his head coach? Who’s his offensive coordinator? Who else is around him? It can’t just be a quick fix,” said Zach DeWitz.
The Chicago Bears enter 2024, much like they did in 2022, 2017, 2014, and 2009, with a chance at a fresh start. But a new starting point doesn’t always mean a new endpoint. At the end of the day, it’s up to the league’s oldest organization to turn things around.
