If the Bears draft a quarterback next year to replace Justin Fields, an appealing option as they get close to clinching the No. 1 overall pick via the Panthers, that player will be stepping into a more ready-made situation than most rookie quarterbacks selected that high.
It’ll be a lot different than this year, when the Panthers used the No. 1 pick the Bears traded them to take Bryce Young and asked him to find a way to develop amid the rubble of their teardown. When quarterbacks went first, second and third in 2021, the teams taking them had gone a combined 9-39 the season before. Fields went 11th in that draft and landed in the total dysfunction of Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy.
It usually goes something like that. And while the Bears have plenty of problems as they sit 6-9 going into their final two games, starting with Sunday against the Falcons, they have significant infrastructure in place.
That’s why general manager Ryan Poles likely isn’t in jeopardy at the end of the season, whereas coach Matt Eberflus, offensive coordinator Luke Getsy and Fields all have unclear futures. Poles inherited a roster that had just three indisputable keepers — tight end Cole Kmet was on his way up at the time and has since made his case capably — and turned it into one that has building blocks all over the depth chart.
That won’t mean much, of course, if Poles doesn’t get it right at quarterback. But that quarterback will walk into a prime opportunity. The top candidates to go No. 1 next year are USC’s Caleb Williams and North Carolina’s Drake Maye, but draft boards will go through endless shuffling over the next few months.
Every single move a team makes either enhances or encumbers the quarterback. It’s obvious when it comes to the offensive line and wide receivers, but the defense is just as critical. It’s hard for a rookie to thrive when they have to spend the whole game chasing.
With smart draft picks in the secondary and the arrival of rising star defensive end Montez Sweat, the Bears are a legitimately good defense that’s nearly complete.
Since the Sweat trade in Week 9, the Bears have allowed the sixth-fewest points per game (18.1), held opponents to the fifth-lowest passer rating (75.9), given up the 11th-lowest yards per carry (four) and are fifth in takeaways (14).
If the Bears, presumably with at least some minor offseason upgrades, play like that next season, a rookie quarterback comes in with some much-needed margin. He can make some mistakes without the pressure of it sinking the team. All three first-round quarterbacks this year — Young, C.J. Stroud and Anthony Richardson — landed on teams currently in the bottom half of the NFL defensively.
The hypothetical new quarterback would have another advantage compared to what Fields encountered as a rookie: The offensive line is viable. It might even be good.
Of the six O-linemen who played the most in Fields’ rookie season, none are Bears starters this season. Poles, a former lineman, swept out all but Cody Whitehair and Larry Borom, who now are backups. He converted Teven Jenkins from tackle into an excellent guard, spent substantially in free agency on right guard Nate Davis and used the No. 10 overall pick on right tackle Darnell Wright. And there’s probably more improvement coming soon.
There also are quality skill players waiting for the ball. DJ Moore, a key part of the trade with the Panthers, is the best wide receiver the Bears have had in seven years and is under contract affordably through 2025. Kmet is having a career year with 70 catches (seventh among NFL tight ends) for 678 yards (eighth) and six touchdowns (second) and is signed through 2027.
Given that the Chase Claypool trade was a total disaster and Darnell Mooney’s production has plunged, the Bears need more help than that at wide receiver. Don’t rule out a resurgence by Mooney, though. He was a 1,000-yard receiver two seasons ago and was an immediate favorite of Poles’, so the Bears might be interested in re-signing him.
But Poles also has the resources to get outside help. Unlike the Panthers, for example, he didn’t have to give up everything to get the No. 1 pick. He still has his own first-rounder next year, which is currently slotted to be in the top 10, and an extra second-rounder in 2025 from the Panthers. Plus, Over The Cap projects the Bears to have the seventh-most salary-cap space in the coming offseason.
So an already good situation could get even better.
One giant component Poles hasn’t solidified yet, however, is the coaching staff. It’s impossible to win in the NFL without the right coach and quarterback, no matter how smart the other moves have been.
Poles took a big risk hiring Eberflus as his first head coach, and that’s not hindsight.
It was unconventional to hire a defensive-minded coach, which set the Bears up to be cycling through offensive coordinators anytime the offense is so terrible that they need to fire one or so good that they lose one to a head-coaching job.
Poles also opted for Eberflus out of three finalists the Bears already had interviewed; the other two were Dan Quinn and Jim Caldwell. He said at the time he had full range to consider anyone he wanted, but said of Eberflus, “I found him.” He hired him two days after he got the job. Eberflus reportedly offered the offensive coordinator job to Getsy the next day.
That all seemed a bit fast, and it certainly was out of order for the Bears to be narrowing down the field of head-coaching candidates before they hired a general manager. It seems highly unlikely something like that would’ve happened under new team president Kevin Warren.
But it happened, and now Poles must figure out how to fix it. He would need to have immovable conviction in Eberflus and Getsy from behind the scenes to stick with them. The moves Poles makes or doesn’t make this offseason will dictate the success of his tenure, and if he’s about to draft a quarterback No. 1 overall, he needs to be sure he’s handing over that player’s development to the right coaching staff.
Regardless, the Bears already have a lot of quality pieces. But that won’t matter if they whiff at quarterback.
They saw that with Mitch Trubisky, who kept them from capitalizing on a championship-caliber defense in 2018 and ’19. Poles already missed out on Stroud, who as a rookie is near the top of the league in most passing categories and has the Texans sniffing a playoff berth, when he traded down from No. 1 this year. He needs a game-changer like that, and if he finds one, the Bears could get good quickly.
