Hot Take Tuesday: Bears Have a Pulse!

Hot Take Tuesday: The Incoherent Rantings of a Belligerent Bears fan.

Well, well, well, Chicago Bears, welcome back to the 2017 NFL season. The entire city of Chicago thought you punched your ticket for 2018 and officially had checked out for 2017. The fact that the team not only showed up, but looked like a team that could compete with any team in the NFL was beyond surprising. I would have been less surprised if I woke up Sunday with a third arm.

Now, the Cincinnati Bengals are bad and they are also a team spiraling in the wrong direction. I also think they showed up and thought they could sneeze for 60 minutes and cruise to a victory against the Bears. But that’s on the Bengals and shouldn’t be held against how well the Bears played, this is the type of victory that gets you excited for 2018.

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I’ve seen some comments on Bears twitter that a hot conclusion to the season could save John Fox’s job. I don’t see that at all. One, winning games when all the pressure is off and the season is over doesn’t carry the same weight. Two, the fact that the Bears opened up the playbook and let a Trubisky let it rip and were rewarded is more of a reason to fire Fox, not less. Where has this been?

Forget the coaching staff. There really isn’t a reason to spend time on their shortcomings, but there is a reason to be excited about Mitch Trubisky. Before we dive into Trubisky’s game, a quick thought on the running game. Jordan Howard and Tarik Cohen are such a good tandem it could be unfair to the rest of the league. If Trubisky can genuinely keep the defense from stacking the box, those two are going to hurt a lot of defenses. It’s amazing what happens when you keep a defense guessing. And keep getting Adam Shaheen more snaps, the last two games he’s played a hefty snap count were his best games as a pro by far. There is zero reason he shouldn’t be out there the last three weeks for 75% of the snaps.

As for Mitch, okay Bears fans, who’s excited for this kid? Raise your hands, it’s okay, I promise. I know as Bears fans you’ve been conditioned to assume the worst, but this kid has got it. Don’t listen to the Bears doomsayers in the local media who want to crush the kid. He can play. He’s proving that more and more and he is going to have a strong finish down the stretch. If Ryan Pace can fortify the offensive line a little and add a weapon or two for Trubisky on offense, this unit is going to jump from a bottom five to a borderline top ten unit next year. Trubisky isn’t going to be able to carry the team on his own, but with Howard and Cohen and a balanced attack, there’s no reason to think anything but positive thoughts for Mitch.

The Bears could easily lay an egg against the Lions on Saturday. I expect a competitive loss, but it doesn’t really matter. The Bears have shown you the beginnings of what they can be. They need to become consistent and continue to learn and grow so they can play at that level more times that not, but the Bears are about to start competing on a week in and week out basis. It’s  going to be up to Ryan Pace to find the right coach and fill in the holes they have and if he can manage to do that, the arrow is going to look way up in 2018.

Chicago Bears

Quick Hits

• Troy Aikman once said he gets paid to covert third downs, Trubisky really showed the ability to do that on multiple occasions including long situations. Excellent to see.
• Pace drafted Trubisky, Shaheen, Cohen and Eddie Jackson this draft, but keep telling me he should be fired.
• I loved Jonathan Bullard out of college. I was obviously disappointed in his rookie year and was starting to give up hope as this season progressed, but the light really came on around November 1. Bullard might be turning the corner into a legit pro.
• For as bad as the wide receivers are, if Pace brings back Dontrelle Inman and Kendall Wright, Cam Meredith comes back healthy, the Bears sign a high-end free agent and draft a WR in the middle rounds and have Kevin White as a last-ditch effort to see if he can play, the WR problem is quickly fixed.
• Edge rusher will be a trickier problem to fix.
• Cody Whitehair has the sophomore slump behind him. He’s back to rookie Cody. He is a center. He clearly wasn’t helped by the Bears moving him around, I’m guessing they’ve learned their lesson. You won’t see that again.
• I want the Bears to compete down the stretch and I certainly don’t want to see them lose to Cleveland, but if they pull off another two victories, 6-10 is going to really push back their draft pick, 5-11 could land them just outside the top five.