I posted my predictions last night, before today’s season previews came out in the Tribune, so I could see how I measured up against the “experts” (because we all know fans aren’t experts, right?). Here’s what the Tribune’s experts say about the season, along with their predicted Super Bowl champ:

Terry Bannon: 6-10 Chargers
Mike Downey: 7-9 Chargers
David Haugh: 6-10 Patriots
Melissa Issacson: 7-9 Chargers
Vaughn McClure: 8-8 Cowboys
Fred Mitchell: 7-9 (NA)
Rick Morrissey: 6-10 Patriots
John Mullin: 8-8 Patriots
Dan Pompei: 6-10 Cowboys

No one else predicts that the Bears will win in Indianapolis. 7 of the 9 think the Bears will be swept by the Vikings on the season. Only 1 predicts a win at Carolina, 1 a win vs. Jacksonville, 2 a win over the Eagles and 3 beating the Titans.

Let the games begin.  What do the rest of you non-experts think?  (Sorry to lump you in my category, but you know what the “experts” say).

I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve been able to run Chicago Bears websites to express my creativity and opinions since 2000.  Considering that world-dominating Google has only been around since 1998, that’s a long time.  And I’m mentioning this because never in these nine years have I made predictions about the upcoming Bears’ season.  So here it is, for the first time.

Normally, I would write something like “well, if these good things happen, the Bears could go 12-4; if Mike Brown goes down in week one again, here’s my prediction, etc.”  Not doing that this year.  Based on what I have seen from the Chicago Bears during the 2008 preseason, this is how I feel it will shake out.

Keep in mind, I consider myself one of the biggest Chicago Bears fans that has ever lived, and of course there are a lot of people that can justifiably say that.  I want the Bears to finish 16-0, and until they start losing, I will hope for the playoffs.  So if my outlook is dim, go ahead and say I’m not a true Bears fan if that’s what anyone needs to do.  This is what I feel I want to do for the site this year, and that is to give my honest preseason feelings.

9/7 @ Indianapolis

Win!  Bears pull off a shocker by exploiting Indianapolis’ problems on the offensive line.  Bear offense just competent enough to squeak out a tough win.

9/14 @ Carolina

Loss.  Bears will be the talk of a lot of national shows after upsetting the Colts, but they’re just not good enough to sustain the momentum, even with Steve Smith out at Carolina.

9/21 Bucs

Loss.  I’d like to say it’s my disdain for the Bears wearing whites in their home opener as they have from 2005-2007 that will cause the loss.  But actually, the defense still learning how to tackle under Bob Babich and the offense just not being good enough that will be the culprit.

9/28 Eagles

Another loss, this time on national television.  The Bears offense is just not good enough to match up against teams with true talent and a true scheme.

10/5 @ Detroit

Win.  The Lions and the Bears are similar talent-wise, and I think the Bears will still be farther along than Matt Millen’s club in his 8th season as president and talent guru.

10/12 @ Atlanta

Win.  If only because I think the Falcons will be miserable this year with a rookie quarterback.  But watch out for NIU’s Michael Turner in his first appearance against his hometown team as a starter.

10/19 Minnesota

Win.  Bears figure out how to exploit the weak Tavaris Jackson at quarterback, foiling everyone’s favorite Super Bowl team.

11/2 Detroit

Loss.  The Bears and Lions are too evenly matched for the Bears to sweep the season series.

11/9 Tennessee

Loss.  Tennessee could surprise this year, and I see them on a potential playoff run against the 4-4 Bears.

11/16 @ Green Bay

Win.  I believe the Packers will either be without an injured Aaron Rodgers, or still figuring out how to operate their offense without Brett Favre.  And Lovie Smith has yet to lose at Lambeau as coach of the Bears, so I will hope this streak continues.

11/23 @ St. Louis

Win.  The Rams haven’t shown me anything to make me think they’re better than the Bears.

11/30 @ Minnesota

Loss.  I don’t think the Bears can take two from the Vikings, and the Orton Offense will have difficulty in the dome as they did in 2007.

12/7 Jacksonville

Loss.  I believe the Jaguars will be in a tight AFC South race and will need a win more than the Bears will be able to muster up the ponies to get one.

12/11 New Orleans

Loss.  I do unfortunately think the Bears may be running out of gas by this time, and the Saints may be poised for a playoff run.

12/22 Green Bay

Loss.  Don’t think the Bears can sweep the Packers two years in a row, but who knows?

12/28 Houston

Win.  The Texans seem to be a team on the rise, but I think the Bears will muster the emotion to win their final game, too late to have an impact on a playoff berth.

The Chicago Bears are razor thin on the offensive line, without a lot of talent there or anywhere on offense other than at the tight end position.  I feel the defense can still be formidable, but not while missing the amount of tackles they did in 2007 and the 2008 preseason.

I am a Chicago Bears fan, and hope that I am wrong on a lot of these losses.  I hope the Bears do prove my predictions incorrect.  I was generous in my thinking about opening night, and I think in my heart I’d like to be more generous on games such as the Titans and Jaguars.  But what I see now, generously, is another 7-9 season.

We will see.  I am excited the season is here, no matter what does happen.

The Chicago Bears offense.  That’s the same kind of phrase as “The French Army,” or “The Devil’s Blessing”.  (Sorry for the offense to the French, but I think everyone pretty much gets it).  And the 2008 offense may well take the cake in this regard.

For the record, I hope the 2008 Chicago Bears shock the world.  I hope Kyle Orton becomes the next Kurt Warner, Matt Forte wins Offensive Rookie of the Year, the offensive line pulls together and shows unbelievable resilience, and the aging/overrated/never proven receivers all have career years.  But sadly, I don’t see this happening.

Here are my observations and predictions, broken down into position:

Offensive Coordinator

This will be Ron Turner’s fourth year in his second stint as offensive coordinator of the Chicago Bears.  I was very excited by the prospect of his return.  In 2005, I thought he brought sanity back to play-selection after three years of John Shoop and a year of the totally over matched Terry Shea.  His simple power runs and high-percentage slant patterns seemed to suit what the Bears’ personnel needed.  In 2006, a stong offensive line, solid runners and flashes of a competent Rex Grossman had Turner in line for head coaching interviews.  But 2007 brought Turner’s reputation back down to Earth, proving he’s only as strong as his personnel.  And in 2008, his personnel does not look to be good.  One of the reasons I was so excited about Turner’s 2005 return was his offense’s 1995 performance.  Then I realized that the Bears’ 1995 offense–clearly their best since the 1940’s–was only as good as an average Green Bay Packer offensive season over the last 15 years.  Sad.

Quarterbacks

Kyle Orton being named the 2008 starting quarterback to me is a bit like purchasing a used 1992 Buick.  It may be different and the prospect of change is temporarily exciting, but you know what you’re getting.  And it’s not flashy.  We’ve all heard it: this is not the Kyle Orton of 2005.  He’s a better quarterback and the offense will not be scaled back.  But he’s still going to be a game manager and will lack Rex Grossman’s big-play ability.  He will also hopefully lack Grossman’s interception-throwing ability.  So in that regard, I’m satisfied to know it is what it is, and is not going to change.  I still find it interesting that one of the two offensive captains may very well be benched by mid-season.  And Calib Hanie fans, take note that the Bears starting three or more quarterbacks in a season is a very distinct possibility.

Offensive Line

Chris Williams, the exciting first-round pick at left tackle, is out until Novemeber, if he’s even back by then.  Opening day starters will be John St.Clair at LT, unproven and short Josh Beekman at LG, the always-scrappy but possibly declining Olin Kreutz at center, journeyman Roberto Garza at RG, and aging John Tait at RT.  The offense’s fortunes will depend on the play of the line.

Receivers/Tight Ends

The Bears tight ends, for once, may be deeper than any other team in the NFL with Desmond Clark, Greg Olsen and rookie Kellen Davis.  Wide receiver is another story.  Marty Booker, Brandon Lloyd, Rashied Davis, Devin Hester and Mark Bradley are either unrealized (Hester), overrated (Lloyd), unproven (Bradley), or over the hill (Booker).  Davis is a bit of an enigma.  He can make the tough catch but was rather invisible in 2007, without great physical skill.  At best, let’s hope the Bears receivers will keep the offense in games.  At worst, the unit overall could be completely ineffective.  But I still believe Bernard Berrian was not worth $42 million, and a team should never buy a wide receiver until they have the other pieces of a solid offense.  Which the Bears don’t currently have.

Running Backs

I’m excited about rookie starter Matt Forte.  Hell, I’m excited simply that Cedric Benson is not on the roster, even if the Bears didn’t have Forte.  I’m glad the Bears added Kevin Jones, after Lovie Smith declared they wouldn’t.  I hope Garrett Wolfe progresses and is used correctly, not on runs up the gut.  What a shame that Thomas Jones could be playing another 5 years as a solid back, and the Bears gave him away and handed the keys to Benson in 2007.  More of this same old story.  And this one.

Again, I certainly hope the Bears will defy all odds offensively in 2008, but I don’t see that they’re capable of doing so.  This offense reminds me of the 1997 or 2003 versions, unfortunately.  A line in flux, little talent at receiver, potential but no experience at running back, and as always journeymen at quarterback.

I will hope for an offense that surprises in a few games, plays solid in a handful and only has a few bad games.  But I’m afraid all season it will be very close to falling apart.

We’re counting down opening weekend with a look at the Chicago Bears’ 2008 units, culminating with a complete overview of the season with predictions on Friday.  Today, we look at the 2008 Chicago Bears defense.

Hard to believe we’re just two years removed from the dominant defense in the NFL in 2006.  Let’s start by comparing the opening day starting units of the 2006 and 2008 squads:

2006:

DE  Alex Brown
DT  Tommie Harris
DT  Ian Scott
DE  Adawale Ogunelye
WLB Lance Briggs
MLB Brian Urlacher
SLB Hunter Hillenmeyer
CB  Nathan Vasher
SS  Mike Brown
FS  Chris Harris
CB  Charles Tillman

Nickel:  Ricky Manning, Jr.

2008:

DE  Alex Brown
DT  Tommie Harris
DT  Dusty Dvoracek
DE  Adawale Ogunelye
WLB Lance Briggs
MLB Brian Urlacher
SLB Hunter Hillenmeyer
CB  Nathan Vasher
SS  Kevin Payne
FS  Mike Brown
CB  Charles Tillman

Nickel:  Danieal Manning

Major differences?  Far from it.  I’d say that several of the pieces (Dvorcek vs. Scott and Payne vs. Harris) have the potential to be better than their 2006 counterparts.  So how is it that this similar unit dropped from a fifth overall ranking in 2006 to 28th overall in 2007?

Granted, we left out the 2007 regular starters, and many pieces were missing for much of the year in 2007.  Mike Brown and Dusty Dvoracek missed 15 1/2 games.  Clearly, the 2008 defense more closely resembles the 2006 unit, subtracting Adam Archuleta and Mark Anderson from starting roles for which they ended up not being suited.

We might predict that the 2008 Chicago Bears defense will snap right back into 2006 form since so many of the pieces are the same, and other pieces are better.  But then why did the starting defense generally get steamrolled in the 2008 preseason?  We would begin to buy into defensive coordinator Bob Babich, who replaced the fired Ron Rivera in 2007, being the problem.  But Babich can’t control players missing tackles and taking bad angles, which is what happened the majority of the time last season and during this preseason.

Also, an additional year of wear and tear on the bodies of these players that average five years in the league could explain some of the dropoff.  But if one listened to the coordinator and players during the preseason, the explanation was that fans and observers just don’t understand: other teams showed wrinkles in the preseason while the Bears were purposely not scheming and playing vanilla defense.

But it’s anyone’s guess if there is one more year of dominance in this collective unit.  If there is, it will be a shame to squander it during a year when the Bears probably will rank in the bottom 5 of offenses leaguewide.

Our prediction is, given the very questionable ability of these players to stay healthy, that if they do, there will be a statistical improvement from the Bears defense, and they should be ranked somewhere in the middle of the league’s 32 teams.  That is if the players stay healthy, which guys like Dvorcek and Brown have not.

But nothing in the 2008 preseason has shown to us that the unit will be dominant again.  As fans, we clearly hope we’re wrong.

Good news, yesterday the Chicago Bears sent an undisclosed 2009 draft pick to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for fourth-year guard Dan Buenning.  The lineman had a stellar rookie season in 2005, blew out his ACL in 2006, and didn’t play in a game last year.  Sounds like he wasn’t yet recovered and mirrors the situation in which the Bears lost tackle Marc Colombo, now a third-year starter for the Cowboys.

This is good news.

But what I can’t figure out is that the Bears cut rookie cornerback Zach Bowman to clear room for Buenning.  Of course I wasn’t evaluating Bowman on every play in training camp and preseason games, but Bowman was touted by the Bears as possibly the steal of the 2008 draft in the fifth round.  They stated that Bowman had all the tools to have been a first-round pick but for a knee injury in college.  Now they deemed him the worst player to have made the 2008 roster, and he’s gone.

Am I missing something on Bowman?  Did anyone else notice him looking terrible in the preseason?  Hope the Bears don’t regret the move.  Either that, or it was all smoke and PR mirrors after the draft.

I assume NFL teams will again be wearing Captain Patches during the 2008 regular season as they first did in 2007.  I tried to find out on the Internet but wasn’t able to determine the answer.  Guess we’ll find out Sunday.  I don’t really like them personally, but who am I…

The Bears named their captains over the holiday weekend, and they are Kyle Orton and Olin Kreutz on offense, Brian Urlacher and Mike Brown on defense, and 11-year veteran long snapper Pat Mannelly on special teams.

Other “real” journalists found the irony that Orton replaced Muhsin Muhammad as offensive captain,being that Muhammad had a penchant for throwing his quarterback under the bus, no matter who it was.  What I think is potentially more strange was the distinct possibility that one of their offensive captains will be on the bench by midseason.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Kyle Orton, as much as if vanilla ice cream is all you can get on a hot day, you eat it and like it.  I don’t hope that he’s benched by midseason wearing the C patch.  But it’s a distinct possibility.  Captains are usually longtime entrenched veterans.  If the Bears go 0-6 under Orton, again a distinct possibility, don’t tell me the Bears won’t give Rex a try.  And many NFL teams won’t have one of their offensive captains benched for ineffectiveness.

But then again, most teams haven’t lacked a quarterback since 1950 as the Bears have.

The older you get, time flies by faster and faster.  I can not believe the 2008 NFL regular season is upon us.  I love the summer, and seems like this year I blinked on Memorial Day, and now Labor Day is behind us.

Counting down to this weekend, each day we’ll look at an area of the Chicago Bears and predict how things will go in 2008, culminating in a week-by-week season prediction on Friday, which I’ve never done before.

Today: Special Teams

Wednesday: Defense

Thursday: Offense

Friday: Final Predictions

Special teams won’t take too long to comment on.  The Chicago Bears’ special teams (kicking, punting, returns) have been the best in the business probably since 2005.  And it’s not just because of Devin Hester, the greatest returner in the history of the game, since he didn’t arrive until 2006.  It must be because of a combination of overall personnel and the unit’s coach, Dave Toub.  Now that John Harbaugh has been hired as Head Coach in Baltimore with only special teams’ coaching experience, the door may be opened for another team to snag Toub in the future.

The only real questions with the Chicago Bears Special Teams units in 2008 are how effectively Pro Bowl special teamer Brendon Ayanbadejo can be replaced by Nick Roach and/or Darrell McClover, and whether Hester can continue his mind-boggling performances into a third straight season.

Ayanbadejo was signed to a free-agent contract by the aforementioned Ravens after two straight seasons of making the Pro Bowl on special teams, and after a bizarre sequence of public statements last spring.  Since Toub has had many different players step up for him, I would have to predict that someone else will fill the void created by the departed ace.

As for Hester, if he were to have another season as he has his first two seasons: remember that with one more return touchdown he will break the NFL’s all-time career mark for return touchdowns: the NFL may implement rules changes given Hester’s astounding impact on the game.  I’d love to see Hester have another season as he has in his first two years, but I just can’t see it, so we look for an unfortunate dropoff in the return game.  Realistically, how long could the phenom truly keep it up?

Special teams: overall solid, some dropoff in return game in 2008.

As we all know, 2007 second-round pick Dan Bazuin is gone. I know it’s hindsight, but wouldn’t Ryan Harris have been a nice selection there?

Is 2007’s second third-round selection, linebacker Michael Okwo, next? We’ll find out tomorrow.

Latest update to www.bearshistory.com: the 1996 Chicago Bears season.

It’s been 10 years since Dave Wannstedt piloted his lifeless Chicago Bears, and we have two more Wanny seasons to chronicle. In our most recent update, we re-examine the watershed quote of Wannstedt’s tenure with the 1996 season page.

There is no way Dave Wannstedt could have known that he was about to say the words that will forever be linked with his Chicago tenure when he spoke to the Chicago Tribune’s Don Pierson in early April 1996. The Bears were readying for the draft, and had just closed the books on a successful free-agent signing period. That February, the Bears had nabbed Bryan Cox-the most coveted free agent on the market-and made him the highest paid Bear in history.

When Pierson asked Wannstedt to give his thoughts on the season, Wannstedt told Pierson he finally felt the Bears were ready to challenge for a Super Bowl title, in 1996. “All the pieces are in place,” Wannstedt said.

Continue reading this article…

I’m a big Chicago Bears fan, go figure. So big that in 1991 I deemed it necessary to seek out and become friends with a living, breathing, bonafide Grabowski. And I’ve been friends with this one ever since.

This Grabowski is passionate about his Chicago sports. With me, he’s even been written up in the USA Today. While I try to not let the frustrations of being a Chicago sports fan interfere with my day-to-day sanity, that can’t always be said for this one.

Why am I writing about this today? Several articles in this week’s Chicago Tribune have made me think of my passionate friend.

This friend of mine always gets indignant about the local paper writing glowing articles about rival teams. It used to be Don Pierson dripping loving accolades for Brett Favre on what seemed like a weekly basis. Then last year, it was baseball reporter Phil Rogers glowing about the Milwaukee Brewers, who failed to reach the 2007 playoffs.

Pierson retired in the last year following a distinguished career as a pro football writer. Seems though, to Grabowski’s chagrin, Pierson’s replacement Dan Pompei has stepped right into Pierson’s shoes in this respect. In one week, Pompei has gushed about how awesome Aaron Rodgers is (Brett who?), and now today about how much better off Bernard Berrian is with the world-beating Minnesota Vikings.

I’ll be checking later today to see how my friend Grabowski is doing with all this gushing rival talk.