Sometimes the No Coast Bias crew will have friends of the blog be guest posters to lend us their expertise in a certain area. Our first one up is Paul Jackiewicz from ProFootballZone . You can find Paul @ProFootballZone on Twitter.
The Chicago Bears might be one of the most underrated teams going into the 2012 regular season. They certainly have the talent on offense and defense to make a potential Super Bowl run. Even though I don’t believe they’ll win the NFC North, (that will go to the Packers) I do believe they’re a playoff team. The Bears were playing great last season and then disaster struck with both quarterback Jay Cutler and running back Matt Forte going down within a two week span midway through the season. It will be interesting to see how the Bears play this season with everyone healthy and ready to go.
Below is my breakdown of the Bears.
Offense
With the additions of Brandon Marshall and Michael Bush on offense, the Bears have only gotten deeper at two critical positions. With Marshall on board, Cutler finally has a true number one receiver that he’s familiar with from his time with the Broncos when he played with Marshall. The addition of Bush will help Forte not have to shoulder as much of the load on offense which should help him remain healthy. Of course the only concern on offense is the Bears’ offensive line. With new offensive coordinator Mike Tice running the show, the good news is that Cutler won’t be taking as many seven step drops like he did with Mike Martz. This should help him stay up right more times than not.
Defense
Even though the Bears aren’t getting any younger on defense they have enough talent to get the job done with defensive ends Julius Peppers and rookie Shea McClellan rushing the passer. Don’t forget linebacker Lance Briggs is still premiere a player who continues to make a big impact each and every game. It will be interesting to see how well Brian Urlacher plays this season, since he’s in the final year of his current deal.
