Any hope for the Bears?
 

I haven't seen any pre-season games because of where I live, so someone please give me some good news on the Bears.
At QB we have a game manager, a poor man's Jeff Garcia at best.
At RB we traded Thomas Jones (and whoever the Jets took with our 2) for Dan Bazuin and Cedric Benson's ego, neither of which are still here.
At WR we're counting on 40-yr old Marty Booker, a borderline All-pro for what, 2 years? And Marc Bradly?
We're strong at TE! Hey, they're the cornerstone of a Superbowl team, right?
On the line we're old and lost our number 1 draft pick at left tackle to an injury that he was only kind of predisposed to.
Our defense is awesome. we just can't figure why they haven't showed up since the beginning of last year. But we're sure it has nothing to do with firing the coordinator.
We have probowlers on our special teams. right, special teams and tight ends. That's a hell of a base.

Please tell me I'm missing something.

No, you're not missing much. I wrote something about it yesterday somewhere else, but to put it midly, for the first time in many, many years, Sports fans here in Chicago aren't really excited for the upcoming football season. Some are, because they prefer football to everything else, but with both baseball teams doing well and the Bears coming off a 7-9 season and looking worse than they did the previous year, there really isn't much to get excited for. The defense was terrible last year, just awful. And they didn't improve it. The offense was worst and instead of drafting a QB anywhere in the draft, they do nothing. The offense produced 3.1 yards per carry last year and they tired to improve the line, but Chris Williams won't play till november. Shaun Alexander is still out there and I know he's a shell of his former self, but instead of getting him, they pick up Kevin Jones, who I believe is coming of knee surgery. And having Devin Hester as your #1 is a joke. The man couldn't run the right routes last year unless it was straight and even then dropped passes while wide open. He's a good change of pace, but every down? Blah.

I'm amazed at how poorly Angelo has handled the offensive side of the ball. It takes conscious effort to build an offense as bad the one the bears will be putting on the field this year. Orton is a replacement level QB, Forte has the potential to be an above average starter, but the O-Line is in such bad shape its likely he'll spend the season running straight into a wall of defenders.

To top it off, the receivers are 84 year old Marty Booker, a guy who could tear his ACL stepping over the line of scrimmage (Mark Bradley), a return specialist who won't be returning as many kicks because he'll be playing receiver this season (Hester), a guy most people thought was going to end up out of the league because of his attitude and lack of production (Lloyd), and a rookie that hasn't been good enough to see much playing time outside of punt returns this preseason (Bennett).

On the other hand, the defense was much better last year than it gets credit for. It ranked 7th in DVOA overall and was outstanding against the run (ranking 4th). The problem was the offense was so bad it kept the defense on the field the entire game and this year it could be even worse.

Let's hope they're as bad as you think! :)

Generally, the year most people think the Bears are going to suck, that's usually the year they make the playoffs.

And with that we have the one reason to hope: noone expects us to be good.

At least they play in the central

and they have 6 playoff appearances in the past 20 years....

I still don’t understand why a team with Orton as the starting QB would not even consider giving Daunte Culpepper a look.

Because they don't want to see basketball traveling violations re-enacted after every complete pass by Dante. It's the reason I wanted no part of him in Green Bay. If I had to watch him do that for 16 Packer games, it almost would be enough to get me to start rooting for the Bears. Notice I said *almost* ;)

This is all you need to know about this year's Bears: their prospects are made greater by having Orton rather than Grossman as starter.

Got any other tips?

The win against the Lions doesn't even remotely count as anything.

This is like the anti-"team looking good in pre-season" thread.

Chicago's in a collective sports depression right now. The Bears are all we have to cling to. Leave us alone.... :p

ahem, the North -- get with the times

I'm going to the Bears-Falcons game this weekend. Since I don't care, I'll root for the Bears (unless I start Matt Ryan).