Bear Digest

Are Bears NFL's Most Improved Team or Really Most Altered?

Analysis: The Bears have been labeled the most improved team in the NFL by one website after an offseason when they've completely restructured their offensive personnel and approach.

Gene Chamberlain

The Bears offense is totally different in numerous ways than last year but to what degree does this make them better?
The Bears offense is totally different in numerous ways than last year but to what degree does this make them better? / Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports
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It can be a vague term, this word "improved."

Some improvement can be subtle. Other attempts are more obvious, and some perceived improvements can end in disaster.

When teams take actions like the Bears did over the offseason, it's done with neon flashing lights and definitely caught the attention of the sport's observers. You don't go secretly from an offense with a quarterback who failed to crack 2,600 yards passing but runs like a wide receiver and insert the nation's best college passer with a group of flashy new receivers.

NFL.com columnist Jeffri Chadiha definitely noticed when he sat down to come up with the website's most improved teams for 2024. The Bears are more improved than any team.

It probably should come as no surprise after the website's Judy Battista predicted they would make the playoffs.

Now the problem will be showing this improvement.

Chadiha might be taking it a bit too far, and his first statement about the Bears reflects this.

"The Bears came into this offseason with high expectations and they delivered in all ways possible," Chadiha wrote.

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If they had improved in every way possible, they would have added a defensive lineman before trading back into the draft in Round 5 to get Austin Booker. They would have signed someone besides Jacob Martin as an edge rusher complement to Montez Sweat.

Chadiha properly points to trading Justin Fields, adding D'Andre Swift, Keenan Allen, Gerald Everett and drafting Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze as the changes made.

The one change he didn't point out on that side of the ball might be as critical as the new passer and that's the new offensive coordinator and attack.

Matt Eberflus hired Shane Waldron without previous ties to him. Waldron left Seattle without much fanfare but it's not easy to have the most effective offense when your accompanying defense has been ranked 28th, 26th and 30th in three years. An offense is passing too much, trying to catch up or overcompensate for bad defenses when this happens, and Waldron's offenses did move the ball well enough to finish 16th, ninth and 17th in scoring.

What his offense can do with a rookie quarterback is the big mystery, but he took journeyman Geno Smith, who had started only two games the previous five seasons and had a lifetime passer rating of 72.9 with a 57.8 career completion percentage and turned him into a passer with a 67.5% completion percentage and 97.3 passer rating.

After game plans resembling those of college offenses, full of designed quarterback runs but not enough passing downfield, it will be interesting to see what the Bears can do with a totally different approach.

Perhaps a more accurate depiction of the Bears at this point might be to call them the most drastically altered team. The improvement will need to come on the field and is up to Williams.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.