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Hello, everybody. My name is Patrick Cummings, and I'm here with Henry Hogan. Today, we'll be previewing and recapping on the Chicago Bears last season and this season. So, the Chicago Bears last year went 3-14 in the 2022-2023 season.
Justin Fields had 17 touchdowns, 11 interceptions, and 242 yards. Our guard by Justin could also rush 1,143 rushing yards. In total, he had 3,385 yards. So, what's up about the Chicago Bears 2022-2023 season, and we'll start with Henry.
I think it was pretty disappointing to start off with. You know, Fields not doing much in the passing game, but doing very well in the rushing game. So, that's a good place to start for him. Just, you know, got to get more experience throwing the football, and to have a receiver like DJ Moore to throw to is way better than just having Mooney, and that's really it.
DJ Moore, one of the Chicago Bears' new additions to his team. He played wide receiver from Carolina Panthers. Last year, DJ Moore with the Carolina Panthers had 63 receptions for 888 yards and 7 touchdowns. He was one of the best receivers in football.
As long as he stays healthy, he'll improve more and more and more. I think he wouldn't do better with the Child Bears, since he has players like Darnell Mooney and Chase Claypool, along with tight end, Cole Kometz. And the Bears also have a bright spot, a couple bright spots in the running game, with Khalil Herbert, Tavante Foreman, and also drafted another guy from the, we'll get his name later on. The Bears, when they got DJ Moore, they traded away the first overall pick, and the Panthers gave the Child Bears, obviously wide receiver with DJ Moore, and overall pick in the draft, second round pick, and the 2023 draft, along with 2024 first round pick, and 2025 second round pick.
So, how can DJ Moore improve with this offense? I think DJ Moore is going to improve by the improvement in the passing game, you know. Hopefully, Justin Fields will throw the ball more, because, you know, he has DJ Moore and Claypool, who's not, and they're not going to be the focus of the offense, it's really going to be DJ Moore taking, like, all the focus out of the defense, and Claypool's going to get some, but I think Mooney's going to thrive by just being a guy that, like, their three guy that can, no real focus on him, and he can produce very well for the Bears here. It should be interesting to see their wide receiving room and how they produce.
Chase Claypool, another Bears wide receiver that we have talked about in the past. We, the child Bears traded away a second round pick to Pittsburgh Steelers to get Chase Claypool. Darnell Mooney, another big receiver on this Bears team, was a 1,000-yard receiver a couple years ago, so a lot of bright spots on this Bears wide receiving floor. They also had tight end Cole Kometz, who exploded last year with, I believe, seven touchdowns, or it was around seven, six, seven touchdowns last year.
So, the Bears, with receiving core, did look pretty set. I am right, Cole Kometz did have seven touchdowns and, I believe, 50 receptions. He played all 17 games with the Chicago Bears. Now we go to the running back court with Cole Herbert and Kometz and Foreman.
Two huge and bright spots on the Bears offense. Henry, how can Kometz and Kometz be better than he was last year and possibly be a top five running back? Right. I think now that he has the, he's the workhorse now in Chicago.
There's no longer any, David Montgomery, you know, he's really going to be competing with Fields to get all that, to get that, those rushing yards. It's going to be him and Fields, and I guess Foreman will get some touches, but not as much as Herbert. So, I think it's exciting to see how Herbert will produce. I mean, he's kind of an unknown, not an unknown, but he's a young guy, so he's new to the league, fresh legs, so hopefully he can produce for the Bears, and hopefully he'll have him near 1,000 yards, and maybe he'll even have him in 1,000-yard season.
We'll see. So, Justin Fields, 17 touchdowns or 11 interceptions last year. How many touchdowns do you think Justin Fields will have this year? How many interceptions do you think he'll have this year as well?
I think we'll see an improvement from Fields in the passing game. I'm going to guess maybe 23 touchdowns. 23. Yeah.
He'll get that interception number down, maybe 7 or 8. Yeah. I think that's a pretty good prediction, and that would be a pretty good stat line for Fields. Maybe pass for 3,000 yards, maybe.
Maybe not 4,000, but he'll always have those legs that he can rely on if he's in trouble. And maybe in a 700-yard rushing yard season, maybe 600, which that's very good for a quarterback. So, that's exciting to see how Fields will improve in the passing game, and that's going to be really reliant on how many wins this team's going to have, is how he's going to improve in the passing game. If he's a very good passer next year, I think that there's...
He's a solid passer. He's a great passer. He's a solid passer. I think if he's a solid passer, I think they go maybe 8 and 9, I think.
I think that would be maybe 9 and 8. But, yeah, it should be intriguing. I can't wait to see how the passing game is going to be next year. Well, with the Bears, since the Bears brought in D.J.
Moore, Fields should be improving skyrocketing, because he'll be running to Claypool, to Matt, and Mooney. Also, Cleo River in the back, while with Monsie Foreman. Now, with the offensive line, they added two huge guys in Darnold Wright from the draft, and they also added for agent Nate Davis from the Tennessee Titans. What do you feel about those two?
I really like Darnold Wright as a prospect. You know, great player he is. He was the anchor on Tennessee's line last year. He was 17.
Yeah, 17 games, no sacks in his last games. Very solid team, like I said, in Tennessee. So, I just hope he can bring that to the Bears this year and produce, be the anchor on that line, maybe coming in, or maybe next year. I don't know if he can rely on a rookie to be the anchor of that line.
But, there's guys who have done it, like Tristan Wirfs and Tampa Bay. He's obviously very good. And I think, out of all the linemen in this year's draft, he could be the best one. There's also Peter Skaronsky and Paris Johnson.
He's not right, Peter Skaronsky. Yeah. There were some doubts with him. So, that's why the Bears took Wright instead.
And, yeah, let's just hope he's the best lineman in this class. Let's see what happens. So, as we move to the Chicago Bears defense, not a very good defense last year. With just a young core, they gave up the most yards given up, and the most points given up during the season.
However, we did see a lot of Wright Spites, mostly in the secondary, and one in the linebacker spot. A little bit of the secondary, Eddie Jackson. Obviously, he's been here for a long, long time. He had four interceptions last year.
Jaquan Brinsker, obviously, just a huge Wright spot. Kyle Gordon, pretty solid. They do have Kinder Vildor, I believe that's his name. He also, I think, has safety.
Jim Johnson, they have as well. He's looking for a much better year. As we move to the linebackers. They brought in two big guys during the free agency.
They brought in Jermaine Edmonds and TJ Edwards. Edmonds from Buffalo, and TJ Edwards from the Eagles, who went to the Super Bowl last year. What do you think about the signings? I like Edmonds, because I liked him in Buffalo.
He's a very solid linebacker. I will be honest, I don't know too much about Edwards, but coming in, he was a guy on that Philadelphia roster who went to the Super Bowl. So, he's obviously, he's got to be good. So, I'm excited to see how TJ Edwards could surprise me this year, and hopefully Jermaine Edmonds performs as usual, and that'll be a very good linebacking core.
So, very exciting for the Bears right there. Well, the defensive line was not very good last year, obviously. Jaquan Brisker, the safety, led the Bears in sacks last year. So, I think one of the biggest holes in the Chicago Bears team is defensive line, and two big holes, defensive line, and offensive line, offensive line.
This is probably going to struggle next year. I do not think that it feels we have sacked 30 times. The offensive line was not bad last year. It was kind of that middle of the pack, maybe below average offensive line.
But the Chicago Bears defensive line is something that they need to improve on. They did draft a couple guys over the offseason, Drayvon Dexter. They do have one bright spot, I guess you could say, in Justin Jones. But other than that, the Bears front seven need to improve this season in order for them to even have a chance of making the playoffs or beating some of these opponents on their schedule, like the Chiefs.
I would say the Lions are going to be a problem. The Packers offensive line is going to be tough to stop. But I think when you add in DJ Edwards and Jermaine Edmonds and a lot of Jack Sandberg, it looked scary. At least in the linebacking core, the secondary should be able to gel.
As we move into record predictions, I have them around 5-6-7 wins next year. I think the ceiling for them would be a good solid 10-7. And I think the floor would be a 4-13. What is your ceiling floor, Henry?
Well, I think, yeah, their ceiling could be 10-7. I think more realistically, a 9-8. But the floor, I think, if everything just goes down from here, they could end up being 4-13. Or 4-5-12.
I think that does what it would be. Yeah. For being optimistic with their floor here. But, yeah, I don't think they'll end up at 10-7.
But I don't think they're going to be ending up at 4-13. Somewhere in the middle, like an 8-winner, a 7-win team. It's a realistic prediction for me right there. Bears first game will be against the Green Bay Packers.
And they'll also be facing the Packers the first game of the season and the last game of the season. Division-wise, what do you think their record will be against the Lions, Vikings, and Packers? If you think about it, as you split with both the Vikings and get swept by the Lions, you see you're looking at 2-4 in the division this year. If they could grab one against the Lions, then...
Or the Vikings, yeah. If they could sweep the Vikings, or just grab another one from the Lions or the Packers, then, yeah, right even at 3-3 would be perfect for them. What do you think? I'm going to say 2-4.
I think the Lions are going to improve. I think more on the offensive side. I think the Bears will keep it close against the Lions. I'll probably even say against the Vikings, because both teams, offensively or not, have a good position right now.
Packers, obviously, have a solid defense, but offensively, they're still a little young with Christian Watson. And Jordan Love is the new quarterback. Christian Watson received Jordan Love as the new quarterback. Romeo Dobbs, he's okay.
The big offensive threats for Packers are the running backcourt with Aaron Jones and A.J. Dillon. So, two, if not the best linebacking duo in the NFL. Now, this is probably the last topic we'll talk about today.
Who do you think has the better future, Justin Fields or Jordan Love? I think that Fields definitely has the better skills than Love does. I think maybe Love would be more consistent. Maybe Fields could have one big game and then, you know, kind of disappear in the next, which I hope doesn't happen, but it could.
But I do like Fields over Love, because Love has just been sitting behind Rodgers for three years. Three years. Yeah, he's been in a couple times, but not enough experience to know exactly how the NFL runs. Like, I feel like Fields is mostly getting right now, so it takes a while.
But yeah, right now I'll take Fields. I think he could be 12 or 13 in the best quarterbacks debate. I think Love is going to be average, like 16, 17th best quarterback in the league. You know, right there, which isn't horrible for him.
Yeah, right. I think Jordan Love, like I said, assuming average QB, I don't think he's going to be anything special. I don't think he's going to be anything terrible for the Green Bay Packers. They're going to win some games.
They're going to lose a lot of games. This is kind of the rebuilding here with the Green Bay Packers. So that's all we have for today. This is Patrick Cummings.
And this is Henry. Signing off. Thank you very much for listening to this WXAV 88.3 FM podcast. Be sure to visit our website, WXAV.com, for more information on your escape from Ordinary Radio.
And we'll be right back.