Chicago Bears: How much does offense have to improve to be Super Bowl contenders?

While people around the team expect the offense to make a jump for the Chicago Bears, just how big does it have to be?

In 2018, the Chicago Bears defense was absolutely dominant. According to nearly every important metric, their defense was the best in the league. In fact, according to Football Outsiders, they were the No. 1 ranked DVOA team in total defense.

The offense, on the other hand, was a work in progress throughout the season. While it certainly made improvements from 2017 (which was almost impossible not to), they never really came close to closing the gap with the defense.

However, the unit was in its first year with a new head coach, new offensive system and largely new skill position players, particularly at wide receiver. And while you saw an inconsistent Mitchell Trubisky throughout the year, you definitely saw growth (which is not linear) by the end of the season.

Coming into training camp, all signs were pointing to Trubisky being more comfortable in the offense and having a greater command of where to go with the football. He’s making better pre-snap reads and going through his progressions much faster. Despite reports that he was “uneven” during training camp, there are a number of reasons why those reports must be taken with a grain of salt.

The bottom line is Trubisky and the offense are expected to improve. How much is unknown but will likely be the determinative factor in whether this team is a Super Bowl contender or just an average team.

So just how much of an improvement does the offense have to make in order to fall into the former category? Let’s take a look.

In looking at the 52 Super Bowl winners in history, 35 of them were ranked in the top 10 in both points allowed on defense and points scored on offense. Here are some other interesting numbers: the average defensive rank for Super Bowl champions in NFL history is seventh, while 45 Super Bowl champions have totaled at least 30 sacks in a season.

In short, there isn’t much concern that the Bears defense will hit the metrics that have historically indicated a Super Bowl-caliber team. The real question is with respect to the offense. So just how much do they have to progress to be considered a true Super Bowl contender?

Well for starters, as mentioned before, they have to at least get into the top 10 in scoring offense. The average offensive rank of Super Bowl winners is eighth, while 34 previous champions have been ranked in the top 10.

Can they do that? Let’s take a look at where they finished in 2018. Last year, they were ninth overall with 421 total points for a 26.3 per game average. However, the defense scored six touchdowns last year accounting for 42 of those points.

They also benefitted from a league-high 36 turnovers forced by the defense which created short fields and better scoring opportunities. Over the last 10 years, the team which led the league in turnovers regressed by an average of 12 turnovers the following season — so you can reasonably expect that number to come down.

If you took away half of those defensive touchdowns, it would put the Bears at exactly 400 points which would have ranked them 12th last season.

What does it mean for this season? Well, since it is tough to quantify how many points were attributed to the short fields resulting from turnovers (without access to advanced analytics) we’ll use the average value of a turnover, which is approximately five points.

So let’s sketch this out: based on the turnover regression noted above, let’s put their turnover total at 24 in 2019. Again, that’s a 12 turnover regression, which would be worth 60 points using the average value noted above. Take away 60 points from the Bears last year, and that would have put them at 361 points good for the 19th ranked offense or 53 points off the 10th ranked offense.

While you can’t assume things will unfold the same way next year, it’s fair to use approximately 60 points as a guidepost for how much the Bears must improve. It would seem to account for a reasonable turnover regression based on historical numbers while still putting them in the top 10 conversation for total offense.

So how can the Bears make up nine touchdowns? Realistically, the majority of that shortfall will have to be made up by Trubisky. However, after throwing for 24 touchdowns and 12 interceptions last year, there is no reason to think he can’t throw for 30 this year. A six touchdown improvement in the second year of an offense is not unreasonable growth to expect.

That still leaves them three touchdowns short. However, with the additions of Cordarrelle Patterson, and David Montgomery on offense, along with the health of Allen Robinson and the emergence of Javon Wims, the entire offense should be markedly better than last year. Again, even assuming an average regression in terms of points off of turnovers, being a top 10 offensive unit is still well within the team’s sights.

So while everyone else is predicting the Bears demise due to “defensive regression” simply remind them that there are two sides to the ball. And with just a reasonable jump by the offense, this team will be well within the metrics of past Super Bowl winners.