May is almost over. June is around the corner. And the football activities are about to pick up around the league. With that in mind, I found it to be good timing that ESPN recently dropped its updated Football Power Index numbers. ESPN’s FPI is meant to measure a team’s strength relative to the rest of the league. And with it, power rankings and NFL playoff odds and projections.
Chicago Bears GM Ryan Poles has high hopes for this team. Frankly, so do I. But ESPN’s forecast for the 2023 Bears isn’t all the way there just yet. Here is the ESPN FPI prognostication for Chicago’s football team this year:
On the one hand, I suppose ESPN gives us ample reason to pump the brakes on the new-look Bears. Those are some long odds and I’d be in the wrong to not acknowledge it. But on the other hand, the Bears have better odds of winning the Super Bowl than the Packers, Rams, and Buccaneers. Two of those teams (Rams, Bucs) have won Super Bowls recently. The other (Packers) has been a constant presence in the postseason, only to see their hopes dashed in painfully dramatic ways that I can appreciate as a Bears fan. All that is to say that fortunes can change quickly in the NFL. And it goes both ways. In other words, I’m not prohibitively discouraged by the mountain the Bears have to climb in 2023.
This team needs to ball out to reach the heights they want. That much we know. But instead of seeing the dark cloud, I’m actively choosing to see the silver lining. Particularly after the offseason they had.
The Bears stabilized the right side of their offensive line by signing guard Nate Davis and drafting tackle Darnell Wright. They brought in a legitimate WR1 in D.J. Moore. On the other side of the ball, Poles added talent at all three levels of the defense. This isn’t me saying the Bears are definitely going to be Super Bowl contenders in 2023. But this team should be a lot better than it was last year.
It isn’t an impossible hole to climb out of for these Bears. It really isn’t. Even if it was, I’d reference an old Jay-Z lyric where he says “Difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week” and move along. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. And I’m not sure anyone knows that as much as Bears fans.
You don’t have to squint to see how a re-tooled roster and steps forward in the development of key players could turn a bottom-feeder into a team battling for a wild-card spot. One-year turnarounds aren’t rare. And if it happens for the Bears this year, it could be the first step toward the sustained success that has been eluding this franchise.
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