The Bears Preseason: What do these games mean?

The Chicago Bears have played another preseason game and as fans and coaches watch these games they wonder just how well the Bears will do in 2010. We have seen starters play poorly, backups make critical mistakes and the coaching staff not be able to adjust so far in the preseason games that the Bears have played and this has their fans nervous going into the 2010 season.

The Chicago Bears came into the preseason with several issues they had to resolve. One of those issues was to make sure that they could protect their quarterbacks and so far that hasn’t happened this preseason. Quarterback Jay Cutler was sacked five times against the Raiders and second string quarterback Caleb Hanie was injured during the San Diego Chargers game. If the Bears can’t figure out how to protect their quarterbacks they won’t have any quarterbacks to protect as the season goes on.

Last season, the Bears had problems protecting Jay Cutler and this helped lead to some of the interceptions that he threw during the season. This year, with a new offense that is predicated on timing, deep drops and precise routes everything has to be working in good condition for them to be successful. If it’s not then this offense will fail. Leaving Cutler unprotected and having to run for his life on a regular basis isn’t going to cut it against anyone this year.

Having such new players (and some in new places) on the offensive line has come back to haunt the Bears. And not paying much attention to the offensive line through the draft and through free agency has also come back to haunt them. General Manager Jerry Angelo has failed on almost every occasion to bring in new and quality talent on the offensive line which has lead to the Bears “downfall” on that unit. Had he been able to keep things up on the offensive line they would be in a much better position than they are right now.

The Bears, since head coach Lovie Smith arrived, have taken a lot of pride in their defense and perhaps they have worked harder on building a better defense than they have at working on their offense. The efforts on defense have seen some success but lately, especially in 2009, the team hasn’t had that much going for them on defense. They have done a lot to try to get their defense back to respectability.

Some of what they have done to fix their defense (this season) include moving Rod Marinelli from assistant defensive coordinator/defensive line coach to full time defensive coordinator. What this does is take some of the pressure off of Smith who called the plays on defense exclusively last season and the defense clearly suffered. Hopefully Marinelli will be able to have some success calling the plays and making the Bear’s defense much better than it was in 2009.

So now, with just one more game left to go (and a game in which the starters will hardly play) the Bears have a ton of work to do to prepare for the season. Can they get it done? Anything is possible but there would have to be some significant changes before they can consider themselves to be completely ready for the season.

Let’s see how they do to start the season. You never know if they may decide to make a few changes such as grab someone from another team through a trade or get someone off of the waiver wire that they feel may help their team.

They have to do something or this season will be a loss.