Not a soul is giving the Chicago Bears a shot to win a Super Bowl this season, let alone sniff a playoff berth.
Now, anyone who would try to argue for either of the latter might actually be out of their mind. This is not a “The Chicago Bears are going to the Super Bowl” narrative — far from it, in fact.
The 2022 season is, instead, going to be about looking for positives amongst what most might call a train wreck — and that’s okay. This season was never going to be a winning campaign. For those who understand the grand scheme of things, this year is all about watching Justin Fields develop further, in a system that fits him well, and trying to figure out which other players can stick around for the long haul.
But, are the Bears really going to be the worst team in the NFL, like some national reporters believe?
Sure, they might finish in the bottom 10 of the league. But, are they going to be that low on the totem pole? Some certainly think so.
In Pete Prisco’s latest NFL Power Rankings, leading into Week 1, the Chicago Bears and their fan base were obliterated.
Prisco’s power rankings have the Bears at no. 30 to start the 2022 campaign, just ahead of the Seattle Seahawks and Atlanta Falcons. While that might seem justified, one could argue that there are a few worse teams than Chicago.
Quite frankly, the bottom 10 of those rankings might all end up in the bottom 10 but just in some other order. It’s going to be tough to predict.
There is a path for the Bears to finish with eight or nine wins this year, but there’s also a path towards somewhere along the lines of five or six. However, in order to finish the year at no. 30, the Bears would have to muster only two or three wins, and maybe four.
If Fields takes a big step forward in his development, and the defense can hold their own while being a top-15 or even top-18 unit overall, Chicago will be much higher than 30 come the end of the year.
For now, fans will simply have to deal with more national narratives and being completely thrown by the wayside.
