Chicago Bears are more excited about beating the Detroit Lions and rattling off two straight wins than they’ve been since the opening win over the 49ers in week one of last year.
Who are these 2023 Chicago Bears with four weeks left in the season? They’ve now won two straight divisional games, beating the Vikings and most recently extracting revenge by beating the Detroit Lions. The two straight wins have the Bears in temporary contention of making the playoffs. While the Chicago Bears are in the playoff hunt.
It’s a bit more delusional for Bears fans to be thinking playoffs with the Bears currently residing in the 13th seeded playoff spot, a spot that doesn’t exist. But there are three winnable games left on the schedule before the journey to Lambeau Fields to close out the season in week 18. First up on the schedule though is heading to Cleveland to face the Browns.
Justin Fields is playing well at the moment, at least well enough to win since he came back from his thumb injury. He’s become more of a threat with his legs upon his return and that’s lead to the offense being in better shape to put up points. It will take everything Fields can muster against the Browns however as they have the number one defense in the NFL and the Chicago Bears have struggled to put up touchdowns despite racking up yards between the 20s.
Even worse the Chicago Bears strictly don’t match up well with the Browns from a personnel standpoint. Myles Garrett will face off against Braxton Jones and while Jones has been competent this season, Garrett tends to destroy everyone in front of him. There’s maybe one or two LTs in the NFL that can slow Garrett down and Jones isn’t one of them. That will be the key matchup for the Bears against the Browns on Sunday.
The running game has been very good with D’Onta Foreman leading the way. Foreman isn’t a number back break away threat but he get good tough yard fairly consistently. That has helped the offense look more efficient than it has at any point under Luke Getsy.
The receivers are entirely a one man show with DJ Moore leading the way with the occasional strong catch from Darnell Mooney. Cole Kmet is clearly the number two target on the team. Kmet is sixth in the NFL for tight end receptions with 61,10th in yards and tied for second in touchdowns with five. He will need to continue to play at a high level for the Bears to keep winning.
The key to the Chicago Bears’ success has been the defense. The defense is playing far better than it has and is being lead by the front four. There’s been an actual pass rush scheme up front. Prior to Montez Sweat’s arrival the Bears preferred to line four players out wide and constantly run them into a wall of blockers.
There was very little in the way of stunts and twists happening up front and it didn’t put pressure on the opposing blockers as that changed, the Bears began to get consistent pressure up front. With pressure up front has come turnovers in the secondary. The Bears have racked up 11 sacks in four games and 9 INTs over the same span. A massive improvement from the first nine games of the season.
The run defense has also been dominant all year which is where the success in the passing game has come from. TJ Edwards has been as advertised and Trumaine Edmunds has been far better since returning from injury. The defense finally has come together as a unit and it’s led to the success that’s occurred to this point.
With all of the success that has happened of late one thing is still absolutely clear, if the Bears are going to get anywhere it’s going to be entirely incumbent on Justin Fields and the offense to not just play well, but to improve in a big way. That will mean more help from Darnell Mooney in the passing game and for Justin Fields to have arguably the best game of his career against the Browns. The Chicago Bears are clearly in position, but they could just as easily be out of it with one loss.
Justin Fields’ biggest opportunity to prove his doubters wrong will be against the Browns. Will he finally be up to the task of performing at a high level against an elite defense? Or will he continue to do just enough to provide false hope that he’s finally figured it out?
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