That was one way to start the season, wasn’t it?

The Chicago Bears, after months of build-up and roster additions, came out flat from the first whistle against Green Bay and got blown out of their own building before the 3rd quarter had ended. It was a day that could’ve heralded a new chapter within the storybook Bears-Packers rivalry, but instead it was… well, I’ll let Jeff say it for me.

(S)HITS principle.

— DaBearsBlog (@dabearsblog) September 10, 2023

After a game like that, I felt the need to sleep on my thoughts. I’ll have more posted later this afternoon, but I want to wait until I can watch the tape before really diving in on this game — I have a bad feeling that the tape may give us uncomfortable answers to questions we didn’t want to ask on both offense & defense.

It’s only Week 1, but that was as bad of a Week 1 game as I could’ve imagined. Chicago will need to turn things around in a hurry too — a loss to the Buccaneers (who just beat Minnesota on the road) will create legitimate stakes as the Bears take on the Chiefs in Arrowhead Stadium. Only six NFL teams since 1979 have ever started 0-3 and still made the playoffs.

The 2023 Bears don’t have outrageous expectations, but I’d think the organization had their sights set on a 7th seed playoff spot & major development from the roster’s young players. That may yet be achieved, but with tough matchups littered throughout the early weeks of Chicago’s schedule, the road to a playoff season got much harder last night.

Postgame Podcast:

Your Turn: Do you feel any better about yesterday’s game today?

Editor’s Note: In the future, we’ll make have a GameDay post and a Postgame post of some sort — it’s preseason for all of us, and those two articles totally slipped my mind. Thank you for bearing with us as we transition!

It’s official: The 2023 Chicago Bears are undefeated!

Joking aside, the Bears got their first taste of 2023 football as they took on the Tennessee Titans last Saturday and plenty of players showed out for Chicago as they did. The Bears’ offensive starters scored easily on their only two drives (which somehow still set Twitter aflame) and the defense recovered from giving up the opening touchdown to muster 8 sacks, 4 takeaways, and a pesky performance overall.

To break down everything that happened in one article would create an illegible beast, so in an effort to keep things clean we’re going to split the analysis across Monday and Tuesday — we’ll start today with the Defense and continue with the Offense tomorrow.

Editor’s Note: Check back with this article throughout the day — as I produce more All-22 cutups, I’ll update this article to include more analysis 

Saturday’s Standouts:

• Rookie CB Tyrique Stevenson had as impressive a debut as a rookie could have, especially given that the Bears played so much vanilla Cover 2 and Cover 3 that any outside CB would’ve struggled to shine. Last week on DBB we dove deep into Stevenson’s toolkit, and you could already see a notable improvement in his tackling form on Saturday — despite often needing to charge downhill and make tackles underneath, he completed every tackle he attempted, which is saying something when you end the day with 7 solo tackles!
  • Stevenson received a warm welcome to the NFL in only his first play, but I loved the resiliency he displayed throughout the rest of the half. He set the edge in the run game, he played sticky in limited man coverage reps, and gave Bears fans plenty to get excited about in his debut action. I love this kid & can’t wait to watch his growth.

Welcome to the NFL, Rookie!

The big gain that #Bears CB Tyrique Stevenson allowed came on a Titans mid-play adjustment — Stevenson blanketed his man early (even cutting in front for the ball) but never saw the WR's spin-to-space coming.

Better now than Week 1! pic.twitter.com/e7irvFdk2Z

— Robert Schmitz (@robertkschmitz) August 14, 2023

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