2019 Chicago Bears Preview

Week 1 of Bears training camp is in the books from Bourbonnais and it’s about time that Press Box Sports takes a look at this upcoming season. To say that Bears fans should be excited for this upcoming season is a big understatement. This team came out of (somewhat) nowhere to take the NFC North by storm ending with a 12-4 record and their first division title since 2010. We all know how the season ultimately ended, so we’re not going to talk about it here but that doesn’t mean there still shouldn’t be excitement for this upcoming season. I’m going to preface this preview with the following statement, I believe the Bears will be a better team in 2019 than 2018 while possibly having a worse record. Yes, both of those things can be true, I will explain in a little bit. I will go through the top reasons for optimism this season, but I promise this isn’t everything.

Matt Nagy

I have to start with the guy up top. How do you not love this guy? He’s so transparent and can actually talk to the media without sounding like an idiot – looking at you John Fox. He truly has fun out there and you can tell all the players love playing for him. Not to mention how refreshing it is to have a head coach that actually knows what to do on offense. John Fox (sorry to bring his name up again) actually said to the media one time after a game that he ran his offense depending on what the defense on the other side of the ball was throwing out there. This was his excuse one game for not getting his playmakers like Tarik Cohen the ball enough – he was waiting for the right matchup. Matt Nagy on the other hand will keep the opposing defense guessing all game.

The Defense

It’s safe to say the Monsters are back! The 2018 #1 Defense is returning 10 out of 12 starters. While they did lose Bryce Callahan and Adrian Amos, I still think this unit will be actually better than last year. First off, they have Khalil Mack. Period. And they have him the whole offseason including training camp - they didn’t get him last year until right before games started. Second, the two players they replaced Callahan and Amos with this year are no scrubs. Buster Skrine, who will be taking over at slot corner for Callahan, is a very aggressive corner – albeit sometimes too much resulting in some penalties. But this aggressiveness should fit very well into this ball-hawking defense. The next new player is HaHa Clinton-Dix who will be joining his fellow Tide in Eddie Jackson at Safety taking over for Adrian Amos. I really enjoy the fact that the Bears and Packers pretty much just flipped players here. I really believe Clinton-Dix is an upgrade. Even when Packers fans were complaining about this guy he was still one of the top rated safeties according to Pro Football Focus (PFF). I think Adrian Amos really benefited from great players around him. He really didn’t do much when the Bears weren’t playing great, and then you add Eddie Jackson and Khalil Mack to the team and all of the sudden he has his best team. The good thing about this change is that if it really doesn’t work out, they only signed Clinton-Dix to a one year “prove-it” deal. One of the biggest reasons I can’t wait to see these guys play is Roquan Smith. This guy is a straight up superstar. Now he has one full year under his belt and gets to participate in full training camp with no hold out. Watch for Smith to start to become the captain of this defense. I could keep going on every stud on this defense, but instead I’ll just list out the remaining playmakers which make this the best unit in the game; Akiem Hicks, Kyle Fuller, Prince Amukumara, Leonard Floyd, Danny Trevathan, and Eddie Goldman. I truly think that this offense will hit the ground running with new DC Chuck Pagano. It was even reported this week out of training camp that the offense is having a tough time getting going because the defense is THAT good.

The Offense

I’m not the first one to say this, but this offense was not as good as it needed to be last year – even though it was TEN times better than 2017. They simply just didn’t score enough points each game. With that defense mentioned above, they should have wiped the floor with the Rams and Eagles just to name a few. But when you only score around 17 points a game, that doesn’t happen even when your defense only allows a couple scores. However, I really think 2019 will be different. They got rid of the slow Jordan Howard and upgraded with Mike Davis and rookie David Montgomery to go along with Tarik Cohen. On top of that, they added so much speed in Cordarrelle Patterson, Riley Ridley, and Emanuel Hall. Matt Nagy truly has so much weapons and toys to play with that I can’t wait to see what he comes up with. On top of that, pretty much everyone is returning. If Adam Shaheen and Trey Burton can stay healthy, then this team has even that much more options this season. I haven’t even mentioned the man behind the center, Mitchell Trubisky yet. The progress made between year 1 and 2 was huge and look out for him to have another huge step this season with his second full year under Nagy’s offense. Don’t expect him to be his draft class partner Mahomes, he just won’t be. But I really don’t think he needs to be for this team to go far with the other pieces in place.

If all of this doesn’t get you excited for this season then I don’t know what will…

Bear Down!