This tends to be a tough time of year for the Bears as they watch the last four teams standing in the NFL play for a trip to the Super Bowl and realize they are miles away from that level.
This season is different.
The Bears are a tier below powerhouses like the Seahawks and Rams, who play in the NFC Championship Game on Sunday. They’re lagging behind the rebuilds of the Broncos and Patriots, who face each other in the AFC Championship Game. But they’re getting closer. Anything less than reaching that round of the playoffs next season would be disappointing, which says a lot about where they stand.
However, as coach Ben Johnson said, that last step is the hardest. He flipped the Bears from terrible to good, but lifting them to elite will be even more difficult. As the team tries to get there, it can learn a lot from those playing Sunday.
Broncos: Persistent pressure
Everyone outside of Denver has been asking all season if the Broncos are really this good. They went 14-3 and earned a No. 1 seed, but they aren’t much to watch offensively and they don’t have many household names.
Here’s what they do have: The Broncos turn the opposing quarterback into Mitch Trubisky virtually every week because their pass rush is overwhelming. The best asset an NFL team can have is a quarterback, and the second-best is the ability to ruin the quarterback they’re facing.
The Broncos led the NFL with 68 sacks and were second with a 30.5 pressure rate. That changes everything for a quarterback. The Cowboys’ Dak Prescott, the Packers’ Jordan Love and the Bills’ Josh Allen all had two-interception games against them. Only two players, the Colts’ Daniel Jones and the Chargers’ Justin Herbert, threw for 300 yards on them.
The Bears’ only major investment at defensive end was trading a second-round pick for Montez Sweat and signing him to a $98 million contract extension. But unless he’s going to rise to the level of Myles Garrett or T.J. Watt, the Bears need to swing big to get him a running mate.
Patriots: Quarterback efficiency
This isn’t a debate about the 2024 quarterback class. The final grade on that is at least a year away, and it might turn out that several of them are good in their own ways.
At this stage, though, it’s clear that the Patriots’ Drake Maye is a more efficient passer than Bears quarterback Caleb Williams. Johnson set a target for Williams to complete 70% of his passes, and he finished at 58.1%, which was last in the NFL among players who threw at least 250 times. Maye led the league at 72%, the fifth-highest ever, and that led to a league-best 113.5 passer rating.
Statistics aren’t everything, but they usually tell the story. Williams is prolific and thrilling, and no one should try to scrub that from his game. He just needs to establish a foundation of doing the little things well.
Williams makes high-end plays that Maye and others simply can’t, but Johnson has been pushing him to master the basics. There are a lot of short passes underneath that can lead to big gains if the ball is on time and leads the receiver into open space. Williams has explosive playmaking ability, and the next step is making the layups.
Seahawks: World-class weapon
Johnson’s vision for the offense is to be totally unpredictable, both in formations and in personnel, and that was evident this season with nine players putting up at least 330 yards rushing and receiving combined. Anyone could be the focal point on any play.
That has its advantages, but it also helps to have someone who keeps opposing defensive coordinators up at night like Seahawks wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba. He’s a problem.
Smith-Njigba led the NFL with 1,793 yards, more than 1,000 ahead of Bears leading receiver tight end Colston Loveland. Having a go-to weapon like that is always good in high-pressure situations, and his presence opens up the secondary for everyone else because of the extra attention he draws.
That’s what teams expect when they draft wide receivers in the first round. The Bears need to figure out whether Rome Odunze, the No. 9 pick in 2024, can make that type of impact. He’s shown signs of it, but it was hard to get a read on that when he missed the last five games of the regular season with a foot injury and was hindered by it in the playoffs.
Rams: Be a destination
There are two ways to become a free-agent hotspot: Play in a desirable climate where players want to live or be so obviously charging toward championship contention that they come to chase rings.
The Rams have both. That’s why quarterback Matthew Stafford wanted to be traded there. It’s why potential Hall of Fame wide receiver Davante Adams signed there in the recent offseason. The Rams don’t have to advertise. Everyone wants to be there.
The Bears can’t change the weather, but they’ve already changed their narrative. New stadium or not, president Kevin Warren has improved their reputation. Johnson has formed an all-business culture and gets the best out of players. And there’s a lot to like about Williams.
“That’s going to attract people to come here... because of how good he is,” safety Kevin Byard said. “That’s why it’s sustainable.”
Byard is about to be a free agent himself and said recently one of the allures of re-signing with the Bears is the chance to win. No one has ever really talked about them like that. It should be part of their recruiting pitch this offseason.
