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What better place to start than the end?
Ultimately it has been a disappointing season for the Chicago Bears. Any season that regresses from 10-6 in 2012 to 8-8 cannot be seen as any sort of success.
However it can’t be said this result was completely unexpected – a major head coaching and defensive coordinator change, coupled with major defensive personnel changes, always meant 2013 was going to be a transition year with a playoff appearance being a bonus – but it wasn’t meant to be.
This season was designed to be the foundation for future assaults at the Lombardi trophy.
The fact the Bears remained in the hunt for a playoff spot, let alone the NFC North title, did not reflect on the quality of the team’s performances – more on the inability of their divisional opponents to grab the division by the scruff of the neck.
The Packers, along with the Bears, had major key player injuries to deal with this year which left the division to the Lions for the taking.
But Detroit couldn’t even accept this gift, in what must go down as one of the biggest disappointments in their recent history.
Minnesota, while competitive in spurts, never got their season going, so it came down to two teams barely above .500 left fighting it out. In the end, it was the Packers who managed to respond to the 16th round bell in the black and blue division.
It was not a year to be proud of in the NFC North.
Green Bay’s division-winning record of 8-7-1 was comfortably the worst in the NFL – even worse than the notoriously slapstick NFC East, which Philadelphia managed to secure with a double digit win column.
So while the division was there, perhaps it was a poisoned chalice, with the winner awarded with a visit from the in-form 49ers.
Only time will tell how far the Packers will travel this year, but the feeling from the Bear Nation was that a long playoff run was never a likelihood, should they had qualified.
While the results in the form of Ws weren’t there, and actually a step backward compared to last year, Coach Trestman has shown enough potential and positive changes to escape major criticism.
Low expectations have helped, however any team with two shots at taking the division should show enough steel to get the job done, especially when NFC North opponents were doing their best to hand it to them.
The job Trestman has done on offence has been outstanding – transforming mainly the same personnel as 2012 which floundered consistently into one of the most feared in the league.
He’s done it all with the addition of two experienced O-Linemen and two rookie Linemen who took to Chicago as comfortably as wished, and impressive TE Martellus Bennett.
Without doubt the most disappointing aspect of this year was defence, in particular rush defence.
Missed tackles were the main culprit, so defensive coordinator Mel Tucker – and indeed the entire Bears coaching staff – have their work cut out this off-season to recruit the right players and mould them into a feared defensive unit again.
Being a city with a proud defensive history of football, in particular the ’85 heroes, this aspect of play is always going to be under scrutiny – especially coming off such a stellar 2012.
Personnel will be one of the first things to be addressed (and salary cap room depending on a number of other players contracts will play a huge part in this, but this is another topic altogether), so work begins now for the Bears D.
Off-season? What off-season?
So the season ends with a drastically improved offense (second in points only to a team with a Hall of Fame QB pulling the strings for the Denver Broncos in a record-setting year) on one hand, and a historically inept showing on defence on the other (second only in points conceded to fellow NFC North rival Minnesota).
Sounds like an 8-8 season to me.
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