I see 2024 as the year the team gets a lot better as far as players and coaching staff. But that might not translate into a great change in wins or even much change in our final NFCN finish this year. It could. I just think the team probably won't get bigtime traction until 2025 and 2026. Yeah, 2024 is the year to let all of these young people and new coaches get settled in together - could be a massive upgrade this year but it might not translate to a first year division title - I'd be shocked if it did.
Okay, that’s a very safe, cautious projection. If Bears don’t win at least 10 games in 2024, people will start to question whether Williams is “the guy”.
Of course they will. LOL, I fully expect by game-3 or 4 of the season the stupid meatballs will be calling for everyone to be fired and how everyone is trash. Fans seem incapable of seeing and understanding the complexities of the game. It's all a black-and-white world to them. They are about as smart as a tree stump.
Okay, that’s a very safe, cautious projection. If Bears don’t win at least 10 games in 2024, people will start to question whether Williams is “the guy”.
Of course they will. LOL, I fully expect by game-3 or 4 of the season the stupid meatballs will be calling for everyone to be fired and how everyone is trash. Fans seem incapable of seeing and understanding the complexities of the game. It's all a black-and-white world to them. They are about as smart as a tree stump.
If Bears are a top-10 defense and finish 9-8, it won’t be only the meatballs who are rumbling.
I see 2024 as the year the team gets a lot better as far as players and coaching staff. But that might not translate into a great change in wins or even much change in our final NFCN finish this year. It could. I just think the team probably won't get bigtime traction until 2025 and 2026. Yeah, 2024 is the year to let all of these young people and new coaches get settled in together - could be a massive upgrade this year but it might not translate to a first year division title - I'd be shocked if it did.
Okay, that’s a very safe, cautious projection. If Bears don’t win at least 10 games in 2024, people will start to question whether Williams is “the guy”.
I would look more at how the team improves and how the quarterback improves rather than win totals next year.
Of course they will. LOL, I fully expect by game-3 or 4 of the season the stupid meatballs will be calling for everyone to be fired and how everyone is trash. Fans seem incapable of seeing and understanding the complexities of the game. It's all a black-and-white world to them. They are about as smart as a tree stump.
If Bears are a top-10 defense and finish 9-8, it won’t be only the meatballs who are rumbling.
I fully expect that to happen, David. The sports media LOVE to feed the "sky is falling" fanbase. It doesn't mean any of it is true. They know that they can get their clicks and views and make money by manipulating the fanbase. They play us for fools and get away with it because.... well you get the picture here. They are pandering to the chicken little fans. I hope the Bears do have a good record this year. But it doesn't necessarily mean the team is bad if they take this season pulling all of these pieces together. We have had so much roster change since 2023 that it actually reminds me of one of the old expansion teams... bunch of new players everywhere - and in our case many of them are young/new - like our rookies (especially our rookie QB1) will be. There is a time factor to this equation. Fans will point to Stroud as if all 32 teams do that all the time. LOL.
I am admittedly an odd duck, in that I don't put much stock in what the media and "others" think. I've never been a herd follower in life. I may not be any smarter than a tree stump myself... but I try to do my own thinking and reasoning in life. I probably owe that attitude to my parents raising me to think for myself and not follow the crowd off a cliff.
If Bears are a top-10 defense and finish 9-8, it won’t be only the meatballs who are rumbling.
I fully expect that to happen, David. The sports media LOVE to feed the "sky is falling" fanbase. It doesn't mean any of it is true. They know that they can get their clicks and views and make money by manipulating the fanbase. They play us for fools and get away with it because.... well you get the picture here. They are pandering to the chicken little fans. I hope the Bears do have a good record this year. But it doesn't necessarily mean the team is bad if they take this season pulling all of these pieces together. We have had so much roster change since 2023 that it actually reminds me of one of the old expansion teams... bunch of new players everywhere - and in our case many of them are young/new - like our rookies (especially our rookie QB1) will be. There is a time factor to this equation. Fans will point to Stroud as if all 32 teams do that all the time. LOL.
I am admittedly an odd duck, in that I don't put much stock in what the media and "others" think. I've never been a herd follower in life. I may not be any smarter than a tree stump myself... but I try to do my own thinking and reasoning in life. I probably owe that attitude to my parents raising me to think for myself and not follow the crowd off a cliff.
Yeah, the two go together. You try to make the team better in order to get more wins. If the team is better but you aren't winning more, then you have to question the metric used to determine you have a better team.
If Bears are a top-10 defense and finish 9-8, it won’t be only the meatballs who are rumbling.
I fully expect that to happen, David. The sports media LOVE to feed the "sky is falling" fanbase. It doesn't mean any of it is true. They know that they can get their clicks and views and make money by manipulating the fanbase. They play us for fools and get away with it because.... well you get the picture here. They are pandering to the chicken little fans. I hope the Bears do have a good record this year. But it doesn't necessarily mean the team is bad if they take this season pulling all of these pieces together. We have had so much roster change since 2023 that it actually reminds me of one of the old expansion teams... bunch of new players everywhere - and in our case many of them are young/new - like our rookies (especially our rookie QB1) will be. There is a time factor to this equation. Fans will point to Stroud as if all 32 teams do that all the time. LOL.
I am admittedly an odd duck, in that I don't put much stock in what the media and "others" think. I've never been a herd follower in life. I may not be any smarter than a tree stump myself... but I try to do my own thinking and reasoning in life. I probably owe that attitude to my parents raising me to think for myself and not follow the crowd off a cliff.
Yeah, I don't think any fan should listen to the clueless national media as they discuss our team. They only know what's happening at a surface level within our team. For me, the national media has been replaced by local youtube journalists who are at the facility every day.
Yeah, I don't think any fan should listen to the clueless national media as they discuss our team. They only know what's happening at a surface level within our team. For me, the national media has been replaced by local youtube journalists who are at the facility every day.
I have done the same thing (ignoring the big media cutlets and focusing on information sources who are local and who seem to have a much more fact-based and grounded view of what is going on.
If you go back 5 - 10 years and look at top prospects (and by top prospects I mean the #1 and #2) in the various draft classes, just evaluate for yourself how accurate the consensus opinion was at predicting the eventual team selecting a given top prospect and how well that prospect worked out. I think you'll find that they are not the most accurate prognosticators of either who is interested in a prospect and eventually how well that prospect works out. As cases in point let's look at the top QB prospects in the 2022 and 2017 drafts. How well did the #1 prospects of either draft class work out?
Personally, I feel fairly optimistic about the future of the Bears. But that is conditional on how disciplined ownership is in keeping their fingers out of how the team is run. IMO, I think that the combination of Warren and Poles is a solid management team. And they should be allowed to do their jobs. If you look at the history of the Bears, you will be hard pressed to find any time where ownership ever kept out of the way of professional management. I can recall conversations I had with a coworker in the 80's. My coworker was (and is) a huge Packer fan. We were watching Michael McCaskey simply destroy the organization and roster that Finks and Vanisi built. My buddy told me, "I am convinced that Mike McCaskey is actually a closet Packer fan".
Yeah, I don't think any fan should listen to the clueless national media as they discuss our team. They only know what's happening at a surface level within our team. For me, the national media has been replaced by local youtube journalists who are at the facility every day.
I have done the same thing (ignoring the big media cutlets and focusing on information sources who are local and who seem to have a much more fact-based and grounded view of what is going on.
If you go back 5 - 10 years and look at top prospects (and by top prospects I mean the #1 and #2) in the various draft classes, just evaluate for yourself how accurate the consensus opinion was at predicting the eventual team selecting a given top prospect and how well that prospect worked out. I think you'll find that they are not the most accurate prognosticators of either who is interested in a prospect and eventually how well that prospect works out. As cases in point let's look at the top QB prospects in the 2022 and 2017 drafts. How well did the #1 prospects of either draft class work out?
Personally, I feel fairly optimistic about the future of the Bears. But that is conditional on how disciplined ownership is in keeping their fingers out of how the team is run. IMO, I think that the combination of Warren and Poles is a solid management team. And they should be allowed to do their jobs. If you look at the history of the Bears, you will be hard pressed to find any time where ownership ever kept out of the way of professional management. I can recall conversations I had with a coworker in the 80's. My coworker was (and is) a huge Packer fan. We were watching Michael McCaskey simply destroy the organization and roster that Finks and Vanisi built. My buddy told me, "I am convinced that Mike McCaskey is actually a closet Packer fan".
Yes, I agree. So far Poles has done more right than wrong. That simple, low bar has seemingly been hard for us to hit in the past. I REALLY want to like Warren (and so far, I do), however despite his great demeanor and his great oratory skills, I am not sure I have seen much out of him. Now, I feel a great leader should be in the background and lead his troops and give them credit for his successes, but I was hoping to see more concrete evidence of his leadership. I think a lot of him.
Okay, that’s a very safe, cautious projection. If Bears don’t win at least 10 games in 2024, people will start to question whether Williams is “the guy”.
I would look more at how the team improves and how the quarterback improves rather than win totals next year.
“We lost but looked good” doesn’t cut it — at least not with me, and I don’t think that works for Warren either, if we take him at his words. This is a bottom line business, and that means winning games. If I am a “meatball” for not being satisfied with 9-8 in 2024, that’s fine with me.
I would look more at how the team improves and how the quarterback improves rather than win totals next year.
“We lost but looked good” doesn’t cut it — at least not with me, and I don’t think that works for Warren either, if we take him at his words. This is a bottom line business, and that means winning games. If I am a “meatball” for not being satisfied with 9-8 in 2024, that’s fine with me.
Improvement, can often be a steady but solid improvement, and a process. That's not just a "sports thing" but a "life thing" too. My hope is to see real, significant improvement. But I realize that may not translate into a neat little "win/loss" benchmark - not after all of the changes in 2024. Forcing a hard reset with the franchise QB, coaching staff, schemes and also some key O players, comes at a cost. It can be a bump in the road to re-set the team like the Bears have. Yes, it can (and hopefully is) a great thing to do in the long term. But a hard re-set may slow the wins THIS initial year. The team could improve, but incrementally - that could translate into an additional win or two this year, an 8 or 9 win season. Now, it could be that the team does a Stroud-thing, but I don't "expect" that to happen. Not with a hard reset.
And we all know that the "Stroud thing" is not the norm when a team does a hard-reset like we are doing on offense. But I get it that most fans (and people for that matter) struggle to be patient. We live in a time where folks want instant gratification. That just isn't how life works. Improvement, for the Bears this year, could just be a steady but solid improvement, and a process. I just believe that is a reasonable expectation for this year. Of course we should see something much better in 2025 and beyond, but maybe not this initial year - especially with a rookie QB. And keep in mind Caleb may be a worse QB than what we already have. I understand that fans want to believe he is a "generational QB" - but he just as easily could be a disappointment... or even a bust. Drafting a QB is a huge gamble and fans don't want to believe that. But busts happen.