The first half of the season has flown by, and we are through ten weeks of the 18-week schedule. The Bears are now onto the back half of the season. There have been some pleasant surprises, but the team is sitting at 3-7, so there are certainly more disappointments. What are the biggest issues?
6. The Chicago Bears failed to address the center position
This is an issue that we all saw coming going back to around March. It was clear that the Chicago Bears needed to release Cody Whitehair and Lucas Patrick, which would have cleared over $10M in cap space. The Bears could have spread that money to sign younger and more depth options, and the team had enough picks to draft a center.
However, they decided to keep Cody Whitehair and Lucas Patrick, and they did not add anything else to the center position. They thought that one of these two would be fine after all evidence suggested otherwise. This bit them in the butt hard.
Injuries played a factor, but injuries were why the Bears should not have held onto those cap hits. Doug Kramer, Dieter Eiselen, and Dan Feeney have all been depth options who give fans hope, but they are not the answers.
Whitehair and Patrick are the disappointments because of their play, but this is really about Ryan Poles, who should have seen what any common fan saw but decided to be blind to it.