2022 Chicago Bears Preview: Processing

It’s time. [Photo: Soldier Field on Twitter]

Meet Terunofuji. Terunofuji was a rising prospect in sumo. In 2015, he reached the rank of ozeki, the second-highest rank in the sport. By 2017, he was knocking on the door of yokozuna. It looked like it was just a matter of time. Terunofuji was certain to be one of the sport’s all-time greats.

[Photo: Mainichi]

Then the injuries happened. First he didn’t recover right from a knee surgery and then issues just kept piling up and he wasn’t getting better. All the missed tournaments as a result of his injuries meant that his rank kept dropping, ultimately falling all the way to the jonidan division, the second-lowest in the sport.

All of this was terribly frustrating for Terunofuji. He contemplated leaving sumo altogether. But his coach, Isegahama oyokata, wouldn’t let him. Isegahama had a plan.

Ted Phillips has a plan. A plan for a brand-new state of the art stadium and a major development to go along with it. Sure, a dome in Arlington Heights means saying goodbye to the lakefront and to Bear weather, but it means saying hello to the Super Bowl, the Final Four, and all sorts of other stuff that happens in Indianapolis that should be happening here instead.

Ryan Poles has a plan. He took a look at what he was given by the last Ryan and decided the only thing to do was tear it down and rebuild. The rebuilding isn’t fun and frankly, it’s hard to get excited about, especially since just three years ago, this space predicted a Super Bowl. Not only did that not happen, the team didn’t even make the playoffs, the quarterback turned out to be a bust and so did the coach and now we’re right back at square one.

The future will be better. It has to be. Or at least we need to tell ourselves it will be. Because while baseball seems to last forever and there’s only about two weeks between the end of the World Series and the start of spring training, football comes and goes and we’re only guaranteed seventeen instances of our favorite thing. And so, we embark on this year’s journey, the past in the past and an eye toward a future of Justin Field hoisting Super Bowl trophies in the monument to football the charter franchise deserves.

There is some talent here. And this is where forecasting the season gets tricky. In the NFC this year, nine wins should be enough for a playoff berth. Eight should give you at least a chance. Frankly, I wouldn’t be that surprised to see a 7-10 team get in. The Bears have three games on the schedule against Falcons, Texans, and Giants teams that figure to be absolutely dreadful, three more against Jets and Lions teams that are probably still at least a year away from being dangerous, and another two against a Minnesota Vikings team that’s firmly entrenched in football purgatory and just handcuffed themselves to Kirk Cousins, ensuring they won’t be leaving anytime soon. From there, it gets significantly tougher. Buffalo has Super Bowl aspirations. Green Bay at least thinks they do. Dallas and New England are knocking on the door. San Francisco and Miami are both legit contenders if they get quality quarterback play. And Washington and Philadelphia are at least playoff contenders, albeit with question marks at quarterback. If Justin Fields is the guy, they take care of business in the six must-wins, take 3 of 4 against Minnesota, Washington, and Philadelphia, and steal one of the tough ones to finish 10-7 and hopefully draw the East champ in the Wild Card round. If he’s not, they split with Detroit, take the 3 against cellar dwellers, and finish 4-13. Your author saw enough from Fields last year in an offense that made no sense with Allen Robinson very openly mailing it in to think more along the lines of the former. What’s more, all the national analysts talking about how bad the Bears are going to be are turning the Bears into this year’s “nobody believes in us” team. Ultimately, a lack of pure talent puts a ceiling on this year’s Bears team, but if they can steal one of the first two against the Niners or Packers, there are four winnable games after that…

Terunofuji started his journey back from injury at the March tournament in 2019. By January of the next year, he was back in the second-highest division in sumo, juryo, and thus drawing a salary again. By July, he was back in the top makuuchi division – it would have been May, but that tournament was cancelled.

In 2021, he won four of the year’s six tournaments and not only made it all the way back to ozeki, but became the sport’s 73rd yokozuna.

2022 Chicago Bears: 8-9, T-2nd place NFC North

Twitter: @KevinSports312