Making sense of the national media’s pessimism surrounding the Chicago Bears
Team Two: The 2021 Philadelphia Eagles
Now a darkhorse NFC contender going into the 2022-23 season, the Eagles have come a long way since being derided and ridiculed all summer going into the 2021-22 season. With a quarterback much less heralded than Fields, an eccentric first-year head coach, and an offensive skill position group spearheaded by a rookie DeVonta Smith, expectations were low going into last season for Philadelphia.
- 27th on ESPN
- 24th on The Ringer
- 29th on Bleacher Report
- 25th on NFL Network
Literally, no one had any faith in the Eagles, and the only thing people had to say about their quarterback was that he was a good leader. Yet, they overachieved and Jalen Hurts was able to navigate them to a wildcard spot in the NFC playoffs. It goes to show that unproven teams often are disrespected in the NFL power rankings, especially those with young quarterbacks and young skill position groups that have not yet found their footing.
Just because the Chicago Bears aren’t respected nationally doesn’t mean the season is already over.
The reason it was important to highlight these two cases is that often times national power rankings are used to build a narrative before a single snap has been taken. We see the media members illogically suggesting the Chicago Bears aren’t committed to Justin Fields or are looking to sabotage him to get a clean slate with ‘their guy.’ These narratives are nonsense and are designed to fill segments and various articles for engagement. Power rankings don’t correlate to regular-season success and as such, it’s important no one draw too many meaningful conclusions from them.
The Chicago Bears have an extremely interesting season ahead of them. Everyone is excited to see how Justin Fields will perform without Matt Nagy, whether Poles’ plan for the offensive line in combination with a new scheme will make it serviceable, and if the two new young members of the secondary become the anchors we expect them to be. However, none of those questions will be answered by random polls and rankings in May, but rather by actual football that’ll get played this Fall.
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