Well, I don't know how the Bears are going to play during the regular season, or if they'll make the playoffs, but it kinda felt like they won the 2024 preseason. The Bears went 4-0 in the preseason, and absolutely dominated all 4 teams they played, including both the Buffalo Bills and the defending NFL champion Chiefs.

The defense was particularly stifling. Watching these preseason games almost looked like watching the '85 Bears' playoff run. Opposing teams simply could not move the ball, and the Bears dominated field position and time of possession.

Unfortunately, going undefeated in the preseason has been a bit of an albatross for NFL teams throughout history. The 2008 Lions and 2017 Browns both went winless in the regular season after having won all 4 of their preseason games. More generally, since 2010, teams that won all their preseason games would not do well in the regular season. Most would have losing records when all was said and done.

On the flipside, no team in this century has won the SuperBowl after failing to win a single preseason game. This does not bode well for the defending champion Chiefs, who lost all their preseason games, including the one against the Bears.

Something that doesn't help the analysis of the Bears' perfect preseason is the fact that the performance of the starters was lukewarm at best. It was really the backups who lit things up. It's hard to judge the Bears' top 2 draft picks because they didn't see a ton of action. Caleb Williams had a few good plays and showed a lot of the improvisational excitement that he was known for at USC. But all those theatrics did not result in many points, as the Bears' starting unit was mostly stagnating in the red zone and kicking field goals.

Rome Odunze almost had a touchdown against the Bengals, if only he'd stayed in-bounds.

There could have been a highlight touchdown between these 2, if Odunze had kept his feet in-bounds for a catch at the back of the endzone after a Caleb William's scramble. In Rome's defense, the sidelines and back lines were not fully painted. Usually, the lines around the perimeter of a football field are thick, solid white lines that are several yards wide. But in the preseason, these lines were hollow, so Rome may have thought he was inside the endzone because he was looking at the exterior line, instead of the interior line. In the regular season, he will hopefully be more aware of where he is on the field.

The performance of the Bears' offense in 2023's preseason has softened a lot of my hope and excitement about the upcoming season. I was hoping for a major turn around, and for the Bears to be playoff contenders in a relatively weak NFC North. But now, I'm not so sure. I doubt we'll see a completely pathetic flop of a season like last year, in which the Bears earned the number 1 overall draft pick. But I now see a winning season as more of a stretch.

Put simply, the Bears' offense showed a lot of explosive promise in its 3 preseason games, but it didn't really show a lot of general competence. Justin Fields went 3 of 3 for 129 yards and 2 TDs in the preseason opener, with TD passes to DJ Moore and Khalil Herbert. But both of those touchdowns (and the vast majority of those yards) came from Moore and Herbert breaking screen passes behind the line, and running halfway across the field for scores. It was all Moore and Herbert; not Fields. All in all, a lot of the rest of the Bears' preseason play showed a lot of the same struggles that we saw last year.

Protection didn't last very long, and Fields had to run on multiple occasions, and also took a few hits. Neither the run game, nor the pass game, looked particularly efficient, and the first team offense saw multiple 3-and-outs. But worst of all, the injury bug has already taken a toll. Both guards, Teven Jenkins and rookie Darnell Wright, missed games with injuries. Jenkins has already shown himself to be injury-prone, and now it looks like Wright might have problems with injuries as well. Both players are being evaluated on a day-by-day or week-to-week basis, so it's possible they will both be ready for the regular season opener in 2 weeks. But even if they are healthy in the opener, how long with that health last?

Dante Pettis, the presumptive punt returner, has also already been placed on injured reserve. So it looks like Velus Jones and/or rookie Tyler Scott will be competing for that job. Jones didn't play much in the preseason due to his own injury, and Scott got plenty of reps at returning punts. He didn't have much of an opportunity to show what he can do in that role, however, since few (if any) of the punts he fielded were returnable. But the important thing is that he held onto the ball. He did have a big kick return in the final preseason game against the Bills, in which a shoe-string trip-up from the kicker was the only thing that kept him out of the endzone. Another sign of potential explosiveness.

Photo credit: Charles REx Arbogast, AP

D.J. Moore and others showed explosive potential in the preseason.