Bears Fans Do Not Live By Justin Fields Alone

The power rankings seem preoccupied with Justin Fields' situation and have let the real secret to the rise in Bears strength go virtually untouched.

Talk about people with one-track minds.

Justin Fields, Justin Fields, Justin Fields.

Read the weekly power rankings and they're infatuated with the topic. Few bring up nothing else.

The Bears did manage to move up in the power rankings this week with a 12-10 win, and people were still talking about Fields.

Few dwelt upon the real story, which is their defense. How often does a team win without a touchdown?

The answer this year was that was the first time. The answer for the Bears as a franchise is 30 years ago when Dave Wannstedt was in his first year and they had a few holdovers still from the Mike Ditka era on defense like Richard Dent, Trace Armstrong, Steve McMichael, Mark Carrier and Shaun Gayle.

That defense had a lot of practice at trying to win games itself because they went without a touchdown in five games, and they beat the Falcons 6-0 in one of them. Thank goodness for Kevin Butler on that day.

At least Pete Prisco with CBS Sports got to the heart of the matter this week.

"That unit could be special next season," Prisco wrote of the defense.

What will happen if they dump the coaching staff, though?

They'll be starting over again. Who knows, maybe they'd even go back to a 3-4 like they used under Vic Fangio. It took them three years then before they got that defense where they wanted it.

Eberflus has done it in a year and a half, if you believe he has indeed done it.

There's another line of thinking that they still haven't been able to stop a respectable offense. Even though they took the ball away from Detroit four times, they still couldn't stop the Lions when it counted.

Stopping Minnesota with a backup quarterback and no Justin Jefferson, limiting the Raiders' backup QB, defeating Sam Howell with Washington and silencing the worst team in the league (Carolina) aren't exactly impressive notches in the defense's belt even if they are better than losing.

Here's where the power rankings say that win without touchdowns should put the Bears.

CBS Sports: 26th

They went up two spots and Prisco said: "The young defense is making strides on a weekly basis."

Well, not so much. The only really young guys starting are Tyrique Stevenson, Kyler Gordon and Jaquan Brisker. Montez Sweat, Treamine Edmunds, DeMarcus Walker, T.J. Edwards, Eddie Jackson, Andrew Billings, Justin Jones and Jaylon Johnson have been around a bit now. It's just a new defense in terms of forming it, not necessarily young but definitely not old.

NFL.com: 25th

Eric Edholm writes about Fields not giving an "I'm the guy" performance, which no one could deny if they saw his two fumbles. "That said, a win is a win," Edholm said and added, "Matt Eberflus has his team playing very hard and pretty well late in the season."

SI.com: 29th

Conor Orr asks the big questions, what are we saying now about this team if those Broncos and Lions games weren't blown at the end. It's a good quesiton. At 6-6, people would be putting Eberflus' mug shot on T-shirts that they'd wear rather than burn.

Yahoo Sports: 26th

No movement for the Bears at all from Frank Schwab, who did acknowledge what a total steal DJ Moore was for Ryan Poles. "He was the best player on either offense Monday, with 11 castches, 114 yards and a clutch 36-yard catch to set up the winning field goal," Schwab wrote.

ESPN: 27th

Up one spot, the weekly focus on sides of the ball led to how their special team groups are ranked 16th overall and kicker Cairo Santos has been consistent. Although Santos had a rare miss inside of 50 yards, he hasn't missed from 50 and beyond this year and among his four field goals Monday was a 55-yarder matching a career long.

NBC Sports/Pro Football Talk: 25th

Up from 29th, and Mike Florio joins the line disappointed in Justin Fields.

"Justin Fields got the win, but he didn’t do nearly enough to cement his future in Chicago," Florio wrote.

Fox Sports: 28th

No improvement in the positioning here and David Helman even took shots at them after a win.

"I can't in good conscience move the Bears up in the rankings after failing to score a touchdown, even if they did manage to win," he said.

The 33rd Team: 22nd

The Bears are soaring in The 33rd Team's poll, from 24th to 22nd.

"The Chicago Bears are an unreliable, but dangerous team with Justin Fields under center," Ryan Reynolds wrote.

The Sporting News: 27th

Up just one spot in the eyes of Vinnie Iyer but he's not as down on Fields as many have been in the polls this week.

"The Bears are on the brink of trusting Justin Fields going forward as the franchise QB, but he needs to keep playing well to keep them thinking of finding his replacement in the 2024 draft," Iyer wrote.

USA Today: 25th

Up three spots this week, and don't look now but Nate Davis is mentioning the "P" word. Yes, playoff. Of course, he adds one other word so don't get too excited: spoiler.

"Don't look, y'all but they're 4-4 over their past eight games and could be a legitimate playoff spoiler on the other side of their Week 13 bye," Davis wrote.

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