The Chicago Bears are four quarters away from holding the #2 pick in the 2023 draft. If Houston defeats Indianapolis on the same day, it becomes the #1 pick. That is how much is at stake for this team. It’s why fans are nervous about how things might play out. One of the biggest unanswered questions was what the Minnesota Vikings, their Week 18 opponents, planned to do. They’ve already clinched the NFC North. Some worry they’ll choose to rest their starters, giving the Bears better odds of winning the game.
That doesn’t appear to be the case. Word out of Minnesota is the team will play most of their starters at Soldier Field. Two reasons were offered. One was the possibility they could still clinch the #2 seed in the NFC, assuring them an extra home game. The other is wanting to get the bad taste of last week out of their mouths when Green Bay crushed them 41-17. Ben Goessling of the Star Tribune had the details.
It sounds like Minnesota won’t hold back. They don’t have much of a choice.
Because the Vikings play at noon Sunday, and San Francisco plays at 3:25 p.m., they won’t have the luxury of checking scores and pulling starters if the No. 2 seed should be out of reach. But coach Kevin O’Connell indicated Monday they’d play their starters in Chicago and make small adjustments to playing time if possible. He continued to indicate the Vikings want the No. 2 seed if they can get it.
“I think it would probably be more subtle than [sitting starters], just knowing that the 2 seed is still available for us,” O’Connell said. “Regardless, we still have a lot to play for just from a momentum standpoint – [for] a football team that’s had some highs this year, for sure, and then one of our low moments of the season yesterday where you’d like to be able to rely on a lot of things we built here to come back together and make sure we rectify some of the issues that contributed yesterday.”
The Chicago Bears can make this process even easier.
All they have to do is bench Justin Fields. He is the only realistic player the Bears have that can engineer any kind of upset. He almost did when the teams met a few months ago before Ihmir Smith-Marsette fumbled it away. Fields is banged up. So is his offensive line. Head coach Matt Eberflus and GM Ryan Poles could decide not to risk him, handing the keys to Nathan Peterman or Tim Boyle. It really doesn’t matter. Minnesota isn’t losing to either of those guys. Not with how depleted this roster is.
Even if Fields plays, the odds aren’t favorable. The Chicago Bears defense has no veteran leadership left. Eddie Jackson is done for the year. Jaylon Johnson is done for the year. Roquan Smith was traded. Even Jack Sanborn, their promising rookie linebacker, is out too. It’s a mishmash of rookies and backups. Kirk Cousins, Justin Jefferson, and Dalvin Cook should be able to roll through them all day. This shouldn’t be a close contest unless Fields went off for 30 points.
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Then again, the Bears always seem to win when they’re not supposed to.
It is so easy to look back and second guess picks. I didn’t win the lottery last night but looking back I should have picked some different numbers. First review I ran across of the 2005 draft gave the Bears an A+. “Cedric Benson will prove to be the best Chicago running back since Walter Payton” Ha, we know how that turned out. The Packers were graded a C- and Aaron Rodgers has been beating us up ever since Favre retired.
I’d be curious with regard to historic Bears player still alive as to what they think of cheating the system to get a better draft pick. I attended my first Bears game at Wrigley in 1954. I was thinking how come Dick Butkus doesn’t chime in on this topic.? First the weren’t good enough to win games on their own during the “Nagy Years.” Then we transgressed to just out onto the field with the intent of tanking the games. Basically, defrauding the season ticket holder. Now, under the idiocy revival brought to you by the McCaskey “Soap Box” productions… Read more »
I’m with Val. Just let Poles do what he’s going to do as far as free agency and draft and let’s see what will happen. I’m just focusing on watching them lose this week. That is what is most immediately important right now.
All of you fans are out of your mind. Let Poles do his job and give him the time needed to rebuild. I hope to see the bears at 500 next season. But they will still need more to take them tru the playoffs. Be realistic
Good God, there’s so many losers around here. I just heard a guy say that if we drafted a Young or Stroud it would take him “3 or 4 years” to be good. What? Trevor Lawrence is about to throw 4k yards in his 2nd year. He was drafted by the worst team in the league. J. Herbert did it his first year on a team that was bad enough they had the #6 pick that year- I know, I know, “but, but he had the legendary Hall Of Famer Mike Williams to throw to durrr hurrr”