Four observations from Bears-Eagles

As fans, we’re all frustrated. We invest a lot of time, energy and money into this franchise, whether it’s just staying up late on a work night to watch them on Monday Night Football or buying a jersey or taking the time to open up an app and check the score.

We’re all passionate about the Chicago Bears, especially here at WCG. This is a community for the fans. To vent, to celebrate, to cheer, to complain. And ultimately, the last four seasons have been an unmitigated disaster.

Bad hires, bad firings, bad draft picks and on and on it goes. Some people have said the quality of the comment threads on this very site have devolved, but I think that’s a by-product of the fans’ frustration.

We all want the Bears to be successful. We all want to cheer, to celebrate and ultimately, be able to symbolically hoist a Super Bowl Trophy up.

Year 2 of the John Fox era has gotten off to an awful start and the team seems further from that goal than ever. However, I urge you all not to fight or bicker with one another. Try to find some positives to rally around. Remember that we all want the same thing and that is for the Bears to be successful.

It’s shaping up to be a long, long season, so don’t get angry or start yelling at strangers online. Just relax and sit back and know it’s going to be painful, it’s going to be hard to watch, but some day, it will be good again.

Now, onto the week two observations:

Jerrell Freeman is the best signing of the offseason

Through two games Freeman now has 22 tackles, 14 of which were solos. Freeman never quit last night and was blowing up Eagles behind the line of scrimmage when the game was already out of hand. He was credited with three tackles for loss. In a season that is shaping up to be a long one, he is going to be fun to watch. A rare bright spot on another subpar Bears defense.

The running game is broken

Last year the Bears were able to stay in games with the help of good time of possession. They were able to run the ball and control the clock. Through two games the Bears have 47:36 of possession vs. 72:24 for their opponents. Jeremy Langford is not looking like a longterm solution at RB and the offensive line, which managed to be decent at run blocking a season ago, does not appear to be as strongly suited to it this year. The team’s third down conversion rate is hovering around 35 percent. They can’t run the ball effectively on first and second down and end up in passing situations on third.

This is supposed to be a running team and if they can’t do it then they have no identity and really going to be in a world of hurt.

Eddie Royal and Alshon Jeffery are outstanding

They are the lone bright spots on offense. It’s a shame that Dowell Loggains can’t seem to consistently get Jeffery involved in the passing game though. The pass game will run through him for a quarter, he’ll make some huge catches and then he disappears for a quarter. That can’t be all him, we’ve seen him dominate a game from start to finish.

As for Royal though, he’s on pace for 64 catches, 848 yards and 8 TDs. While he likely won’t hit that last mark, the other two seem within reach should he stay healthy. For a player who a lot of fans left off their final 53-man roster, he’s been brilliant. Last night he was breaking tackles and fighting for yards after the catch like a WR six inches taller and thirty pounds heavier than him.

Bears are going to learn a lot about their young players

Players were dropping like flies last night and it’s going to lead to some inexperienced players seeing the field much earlier than the team probably wants. Deon Bush, Jacoby Glenn, DeAndre Houston-Carson and possibly Nick Kwiatkoski could all be getting significant defensive reps in the coming weeks. Both starting safeties, the starting nickleback and the starting NT all could be down for multiple games, which would mean these young guys could go from inactive to starting in some cases.

Buckle up, it’s going to get bumpy.