I expected this, and unlike others I ADMIT when I'm wrong.
Many of my reasons above are/were still apt. I'll dive into those later, when I have time but a few things at play here...ALL of which are anti-Bears Ws. Sorry in advance if I don't perfectly address my initial post here. Just spit-firing off the top of my head on season to date...
Just like gambling (I literally bet on 7 & 8 wins, even a limp into WC at awesome odds), there are always outside factors. For example, I understood that an injury to Fields could kill the year entirely. I also expected shitty WR production, but damn, the 1st down drops on game-tying/winning drives have been many!! Also several TD drops, deep bombs run a hair too slowly...hell, even Mooney admitted fault this week.
The biggest being that every single loss but one have been EXTREMELY CLOSE!!!
.....so close that any ONE of 3-5 weekly plays/calls don't go south = Bears wins:
*1) Special teams gaff / TD given up in at least 5 losses: 2 muffed punt TDs gift-wrapped, blocked punt TD, missed extra point, etc. Valus Jones, as explosive as he can be, single-mis-handedly cost the team 2 wins. I didn't expect that from a 25 y/o who excelled in kick returns.
*2) Refs. Some of you think whining b/c losing. No. There's been multiple plays nearly every game that NFL reviewed after Bears submitted tape and NFL ADMITTED were shit calls, hurting the Bears. It's beyond a comic tragedy at this point. Fields can't get the most obvious of roughing the passer calls (mostly of slides), while they clip Bears for touching Mariotta's ankle less than a step after the ball comes out. Pass Interference is repeatedly wrong on both sides off the ball (again, NFL admits it each week "sorry"). It's a whole separate topic with dozens of threads. It's hard to win 1-scores games when opponents get free first downs, and Bears drives are stifled with penalties. Again, I expect shit calls, but it's a new level this season.
3) ? Would they have shipped Roquan & Quinn if they were in contention, having won just 3 of these 7 fringe games and offense taking off at that point? We'll never know. Good moves for cap & draft picks since they were out of it though. Can't say these 2 players would've = another win or 2. Quinn better than Roquan IMHO. Ro's over-pursuits lead to tons of missed high arm tackles, often in the backfield. Quinn at least provided some pressure, even without sack #s. I digress...other threads on these guys. We vary on how much, but losing them hurt to some extent. It was a rebuild year, but I still believe Bears brass intended to at least put up a good fight this season & see where the chips fell before selling off to this extent. Proof I'm right IMO is they would've/should've sold Quinn pre-season for higher value but held him.
4) I really didn't expect Fields & Getsy to start off so cold & conservative! I hoped for some semblance of the Fields' upside offense we've seen lately, and was counting on it. Nobody expected Bears O to lead the league in rushing & scoring; much less vs. some pretty good defenses (NE, DAL, etc). I was right to expect good things eventually, but they've even surpassed expectations with limited resources.
5) Mustipher - Injuries happen, but I woulda pulled all expectations had I known he'd be starting basically the whole year. OMG. His missed block also led to Whitehair getting rolled up on & missing a lot of time. I hoped they'd use Whitehair as backup C over Musty, but Sam sucks at G too. Might've also slowed Field's development / trust. Snowball effect. Lucas Patrick is at least startable and knew the O from day 1. I actually believe the run game would be better yet without Musty.
6) Opponents / Schedule - Early gaffs really hurt them in very winnable games vs shitty teams. They needed some weeks to figure the O out, and while I banked on early winnable opponents while ironing that out, they squandered the opportunities in unimaginable ways (above). Now that O is firing off like crazy, they're barely losing to the good teams too. We all expected LOSSES to SF, GB, DAL, MIN even. It was stacked to at least take Ws vs half of these shit teams: HOU, WASH, DET, ATL, (NYG are better than expected). They still beat SF & NE even; and were in all others but GB til the end.
*While variance can/should be expected, Bears such a fringe team, they're really rolling snake-eyes each week (#1&2) and it's repeatedly costing them the W every. single. time.
Sad to eat crow & loss some $, but hoping for good draft pick and continued development at this point!
What's funny is I did a similar post prior to the 2018 season predicting strong Defense to carry them to wins on a weak schedule and actually got flamed after I brought it up later, after having won a lot on similar long-odds bets. Despite the team winning, the negative minded still couldn't accept cause & effect logic when it panned out. Whatever. Interesting stuff to ponder for sure.
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