American football season is back in action. Time to whip up the barbecue, go tailgating, root for your favorite team, and hope that they play well. The start of the season is exciting for all, unless you’re a fan of the Browns, Jets, Buccaneers, and soon to be off the list, the Bears.

The Bears are in position right now to come out of the rebuilding process and possibly into playoff contention. The Bears have decent quarterbacks, along with other defensive stars. But don’t assume that because of this, the Bears will be better than last year.

In 2017 many people thought Tribusky was a great quarterback and could carry us through a successful season, but the bears ended up going 5-11, similar to the years beforehand. Some fans and experts think that the Bears can go 7-9, but I don’t see that happening. Who knows, maybe with all the great players the Bears have on their roster, they can still go 5-11. I’ll be reviewing what the Bears have and don’t have, their status as of the first few weeks, as well as what people think of the Bears.

First things first, the Bears have a few key players that will most likely lead to a successful season. According to what we saw in week one from linebackers Khalil Mack and Roquan Smith they could bring back to true form of “The Monsters of the Midway.” Heck, Mack in his first quarter of the first game tore the ACL of the Green Bay Packers quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, and got a pick six in just two quarters, showing his potential of being a great player.

The rushing statistics for the Bears seem okay as of the beginning weeks. While they aren’t great, if they practice enough they could get things rolling and begin to see a change, if not then it could be as major a downside for the Bears, as Mitchell Trubisky.

In the first week of the regular season, Trubisky had a QB rating of 77.2, and in week 3, he had a rating of 73.5, which is terrible for the NFL. Even worse, Trubisky lost the final possession in their first game, as the Packers came back from a 20-3 deficit in the 4th quarter.

Trubisky can’t be playing at this low level in the NFL if he wants to make the Bears relevant again. He has to play like he has never played before. And if for some reason, he can’t do that. I don’t think they will come anywhere near the playoffs.

This brings me to the predictions for this Chicago Bears season. I have asked some students from Sports Literature as well as PHS english teachers, Katie Kupka and Megan Panico on their thoughts of how the Bears are playing. The average wins the students predicted was 7.4 wins, with the highest being 10-6 and the lowest being 5-11. However everyone was able to agree on Mack being a strength for the Bears while their offense being a weakness.

“The strengths are changes with the quarterbacks and coaches as well as the recent players,” Kupka said. “The weaknesses are the other younger players and coaches who just joined the NFL.”

This mostly makes sense because although I don’t agree that the quarterback situation is the best, some players had a remarkable game against the Packers and Cardinals, like Smith and Mack.

As for the downsides, this makes sense because most of the NFL coaches and players beginning years are their roughest. I believe that in a few years, the Bears will become decent players that could make some remarkable plays happen, as long as they continue to improve every year.

“I’m excited to see a strong defense finally,” English teacher Megan Panico said. “I had a good fan experience at the game [against Seattle], but we need to move the ball a little bit more on offense. The problem is that defense alone is not going to win games. They need to move the ball.”

I couldn’t agree more on that statement personally. The defense looks great, but the offense, not so great. If the offense fixes their gameplay, then the Bears are guaranteed to be headed for greatness.

The Bears state is in the middle, they seem to rebuilding on one side, but on the other, it could be the same year as the one before. They have good players, but they also have some bad ones. Despite this controversy, only  time will tell if the Bears are on their way to the playoffs anytime soon. And maybe, we can look back at this as an archive of what once was, whether they go 10-6 or 0-16.