Bears Not Grossed Out Yet

NFL Power Rankings (one team at a time)

4. Chicago Bears: It seems that nobody likes Rex Grossman. One could scour the internet for hours looking for nice things said about him and still come up short. Yet the fact remains is that he did lead his team to the Super Bowl last year and could definitely do it again. Sure, he wasn’t the most instrumental piece to Chicago’s success last season and he never looked all that in control in the huddle, but he could have blown it a lot worse and not beat the Saints in the conference championship. He will always be grouped in the Trent Dilfer/Brad Johnson category of average quarterbacks with tremendous defenses that carry a team into a Super Bowl. Historians will agree that Grossman had a fairly easy job in handing off to their two-headed running back monster and watching the defense score points in nearly every game. Occasionally he did throw a good deep ball to Muhammad, but the jury is still very much out for Sexy Rexy.
This season Rex has one less premier back to hand off to. Jones jetted to New York so now the emotional Cedric Benson gets to carry the load. The guy reminds me of Corey Dillon in the way they both carry the ball with such anger and ferocity. Benson needs to be successful to take the pressure off of Grossman. The receivers outside of Muhammad are pretty average in my opinion. Berrian has shown some ability but the back ups to the starting two are really random and the Bears don’t want to have to rely on those guys. The line is pretty much the same as last year and will pride themselves on run blocking again this year. I thought the Bears would go after Eric Steinbach in the off-season more than they did. He could have filled one of the tackle spots well in that smash mouth offense.
Defensively this team is hard as nails. They have their core returning with the addition of Denard Walker at DT filling in for the often-troubled gunrunner Tank Williams. Devin Hester probably wont return 7 or 8 kicks back for TD’s, but the guy is rated a 100 in speed in Madden ’08. He’s exciting. Convincing Lance Briggs to play this year was a huge break for this team. As good as Urlacher is, Briggs makes his job loads easier than it would be without him. Ogunleye is still a beast and I predict Mark Anderson will have a big sack total this year. Tillman and Vasher will add to sack totals by their superb coverage ability.
The Bears are clearly a good team, but playing in the NFC is just easier these days. In the AFC they might be a wild card contender. Their division is soft, Lovie Smith knows how to get the most from his team, and their stadium is awesome (I know that has little to do with wins but I like it anyway). I’m sure we’ll here more calls for Brian Griese throughout the year as soon as Rex throws an inexplicable pick and the Chicago media will question the entire organization for not benching him for it. The defense will likely bail out the offensive turnovers plenty of times this year, and they’ll need more special teams fireworks. But Lovie knows what he’s doing and I don’t see why they wont be back in the NFC title game.

Next: Baltimore Ravens