2021 Chicago Bears Schedule
The NFL has turned everything into a television program. And who can blame them? The NFL Draft now does better ratings than almost every other sporting contest AND the damn Academy Awards. (How in the hell did that happen?)
The schedule release does not have the same ratings appeal for two reasons: (1) every local beat leaks the schedule as the day goes on and (2) we consume the schedule in one shot, in about 30 seconds, and then sort of move on.
Three things I’ll be watching with the release tonight at 8 PM ET.
__________________________
With a seventeen-game schedule, most teams will be hoping their bye lands as close to the middle of the season as possible. A Week 4 or Week 5 bye leaves a long stretch of uninterrupted football (barring wildcard weekend off) in order to get to the Super Bowl.
But for the Chicago Bears the bye is entirely about one thing: Justin Fields. If the Bears stick with their current plan, and give Andy Dalton the opener, the bye will be every fan’s target to get Fields on the field. A few questions should be asked.
The Bears completely overhauled their QB room this offseason, letting Mitchell Trubisky leave, signing Andy Dalton, and trading up in the 1st round to draft Justin Fields. The goal is obvious: improve a passing attack that finished last year ranked 28th in yards/attempt, 18th in passing TD, threw the 4th most interceptions, and had the 24th passer rating among 32 NFL teams.
With that in mind, I want to look at each of the additions compared to who they replaced to see how likely it is that they actually provide the desired upgrade. I’m starting today with Andy Dalton, who the Bears have insisted is still their starter.
Let’s start with a surface-level view of Dalton’s passing stats compared to Trubisky and Nick Foles, the 2020 QBs.
Since playing time has been spotty for all of them over the last few years, due to a combination of injury and sometimes being the backup, I’m going to use cumulative 2018-20 stats for all of them to give a decent sample size (600+ pass attempts for each). I’ll include the NFL average over that time period to see how each QB stands relative to their peers.
As you can see there, a first glance makes it look like Dalton doesn’t provide much improvement over the status quo. The three QBs vary quite a bit in completion percentage, but all come up well below the NFL average in both yards per attempt and TD to INT ratio. If anything, Trubisky was the most productive QB of the three (though this is not an argument for keeping Trubisky. They are all bad NFL QBs). If you’re really curious about the 2020 Bears specifically, they completed 66% of their passes, averaged 6.4 yards/attempt, and had 1.6 TD for every INT.
However, we can take a closer look to see if there’s something we might be missing. Let’s split up passes into short (less than 15 yards past the line of scrimmage) and deep (15+ yards past the line of scrimmage). Here’s the same table as above, only with that split applied. Short passes are highlighted in orange, deep passes in blue.
Found myself down the Justin Fields YouTube rabbit hole yesterday so I thought I’d share that here today.
Two thoughts:
There’s just something different about how this kid carries himself. He walks around like a star. And I believe you need that to success at quarterback.
It’s been a week since Justin Fields became the next quarterback of the Chicago Bears.
It’s been that same week since Aaron Rodgers decided he would no longer go gentle into that Green Bay night. After weeks of apparently expecting to be traded and not, while also receiving contract extension offers without enough guaranteed cash, Rodgers decided to have his people call Adam Schefter’s people and fly the Enola Gay over the draft proceedings in Cleveland.
Immediately, DraftKings Sportsbook pulled the NFC North odds for next season off the board. As rumors of Rodgers’ probable destinations surfaced – Denver and Vegas being the leaders in the clubhouse – DK also pulled the AFC West off the board. (Both divisions have since been reinstalled, with the Packers -115 to win the division, which might be where the odds settle without Rodgers in the mix.)
Will Rodgers be on the Packers this season? He’s told the team he will not. He’s told his teammates he will not. I’m pretty sure he told half the bartenders at Churchill Downs he will not. (“Hey man, you know this is one good Mint Julep. You know anything about the golf clubs in Denver?”) All signs are pointing to the end of the Rodgers era in Green Bay and the first set in the main room for Jordan Love, who’ll now begin his quest to provide the Packers with three consecutive Hall of Fame quarterbacks.
No matter the outcome of the Rodgers saga, the Bears must ignore it. All of it. Yes, Rodgers out of the NFC North would mean the division is up for grabs in 2021 and the Bears would be well-positioned to win it. But the team can’t let the circumstances of another club, even their oldest rival, impact the development of their quarterback. If the plan coming out of camp is for Andy Dalton to start the season at quarterback and for Fields to learn at the hip of Matt Nagy for a period of time, stick to that plan. If Dalton starts 0-2, so be it.
History definitively tells us two things. (1) Andy Dalton isn’t winning the Super Bowl. (2) Rookie quarterbacks aren’t winning the Super Bowl. So while winning the NFC North would be a nice treat in 2021, the team will be far better served ensuring their young quarterback is ready to win the whole shebang in September 2022.
Rodgers leaving the division would be a remarkable moment; a three-city sigh of relief. But when it comes to the long-term success of the Chicago Bears and their quarterback, it shouldn’t mean a damn thing.
Selecting a quarterback in the first round of the NFL draft hasn’t bought extended tenures for coaches and general managers of late, but the decision to release Charles Leno Jr. could be a hint that Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy are on stable ground.
There is no way around it. The Bears would be better in 2021 with Leno on the team. He is an average left tackle, but average is good enough to prevent either Andy Dalton or Justin Fields from being buried in the ground. Leno bounced back from a rough start in 2019 and has been inarguably the team’s most consistent offensive lineman since. While he isn’t known for his ability to push the pile, the Bears averaged six yards per carry running behind Leno in 2020, according to Sharp Football Statistics.
2014 7th round draft pick 👉🏾 93 consecutive starts in the past 7 seasons with the team that I was drafted to.
My time in Chicago has officially come to an end. It’s a bittersweet day but I am excited to see where this next chapter takes me. pic.twitter.com/XJbJbop1kD
— Charles Leno Jr (@charleslenojr72) May 3, 2021
The Bears generally seem to agree that Leno was at least decent at his job or they wouldn’t have waited until after the draft to move on. Outside of a push for one of the league’s best in Trent Williams, we had no real evidence that the Bears were displeased with Leno. If they hadn’t moved up for a tackle, it seems they would’ve been just fine proceeding with him.
It started with a dinner.
Dan Wiederer told the tale.
Ryan Pace had a “covert” dinner with Mitch Trubisky at a steakhouse in Chapel Hill. The reservation, made by Mitch, was under the name Jim McMahon. History! Trubisky drove a Datsun or Pinto or something. Humility! The Bears decided this was their quarterback of the future because he seemed to check all the intangible boxes found on a form Pace stole from a locked drawer in Sean Payton’s desk.
It didn’t work. And the scrutiny started quickly. What didn’t Pace like about Patrick Mahomes? Why didn’t he meet with Deshaun Watson? What about Trubisky was SO impressive – it certainly wasn’t his collegiate production – that it led the Bears GM to throw horse blinders on and ignore everybody else?
The Pace tenure had become defined by those months leading up to the 2017 NFL Draft and the production of the men he decided not to take. Sure, he whiffed on Kevin White, reached (ridiculously) for Adam Shaheen and tossed some money away on Robert Quinn. But every GM misses on picks and spends money ineffectively in free agency. Trubisky was the story. And that mistake, compounded by Pace’s inability to correct it (an improbable task, to be fair) was the entire narrative. Every positive move, including rebuilding the worst defense in Chicago Bears history, was shuffled into the shadows.
____________________
Come the end of the 2020 season, the expectations were that Pace would be GM no longer. The Bears were coming off back-to-back mediocre seasons, with a flop quarterback and an aging defense. Change felt inevitable, whether that be the coach, the GM or long-time team president Ted Phillips. GMs don’t get second chances to find franchise quarterbacks. Owners, especially in this modern, last-place-to-first-place-yearly NFL, are not patient individuals. It’s been well-discussed how much George McCaskey likes Pace but an owner’s love plus $5.99 will get you a double cheese at the Billy Goat.
They stood pat. They delivered an awkward press conference, preached collaboration, and maintained an organizational status quo. McCaskey and Phillips trusted their instincts, leaning on their belief that Pace – still only 44 years old – was not a completed picture. In any line of work, one usually improves with time and experience and the Bears believed the same would be true for Pace. It was not a decision met favorably by those who cover and cheer for the Chicago Bears. Many claimed it was the Bears acting like 8-8 was perfectly acceptable. But anyone listening to that presser heard a distinct refrain: it was about the quarterback. Pace was admitting his Trubisky failure and vowing to make amends THIS offseason.
As the draft closed in, that vow seemed like horseshit.
In the first round, the Bears selected Justin Fields. (More on this tomorrow.)
In the second, they selected Teven Jenkins, the most mocked player to the team over the last month.
We posted highlights of fifth round pick Larry Borom. Here are highlights from the rest.
