Bears’ QB decision has not been made. But Chicago is on the rise regardless

Chicago Bears

Published Feb. 6, 2024 9:04 a.m. ET

The Chicago Bears already made one of their most important offseason decisions.

They let offensive coordinator Luke Getsy go and brought in one of the best available (and most qualified) offensive coordinators: Shane Waldron.

Waldron left Seattle after head coach Pete Carroll and the team ‘mutually parted ways’. He will now be tasked with designing a Chicago offense that exploits the skillset of… well, we’ll find out soon.

While fans and media members have tried to read the tea leaves of the organization’s plans under center through this hire, the truth of the matter is that it’s anyone’s guess. Waldron has been able to tailor his well-rounded offensive system to whatever quarterback he has available, even when those quarterbacks are completely different.

That was a focus of the offensive coordinator search, according to Bears general manager Ryan Poles. Not that Waldron doesn’t have a system of his own — he does. It marries a power run game with a ton of play action out of varying personnel sets and motion, but that manifests in different ways depending on the skillset of his quarterback. He’s never had a quarterback who can run like Justin Fields, given that not many athletes like Fields exist. Embedding a signal caller like that into a punishing run scheme could be incredibly fun.

Fields will be entering his fourth season in 2024. He’s started 38 games in that span. This past season, he threw for 2,562 yards and 16 touchdowns against nine interceptions. He ran for an additional 657 yards and four touchdowns. Not even 25 years old yet, Fields is still young, too. He’s younger than the most recent quarterback Waldron worked with in Seattle, Geno Smith. But he’s not so young that his contract isn’t coming into sharp relief.

The Bears have to decide whether to pick up Fields’ fifth-year option in the coming months. That would guarantee Fields around $25 million in 2025. The thought is that a long-term contract wouldn’t be far behind. Nearly half of the league’s quarterbacks are making $35 million or more, with contracts only getting richer. A franchise player, like Fields would be if he made it to a second contract with the team, makes somewhere in the range of $40-55 million per year. That’s a lot of money to commit in the very near future to a player who has yet to show the team he’s that caliber of quarterback.

The other option is to take advantage of a unique draft situation and select a quarterback with first overall pick, effectively resetting the contract clock on the most expensive position. The Bears acquired No. 1 overall after last year’s trade down with the Carolina Panthers out of Chicago’s earned first overall pick. The Bears are again in that top spot, and still have their own No. 9 overall pick, all while fielding a sneaky-good roster led by a defense that played like one of the NFL’s best at the end of the 2023 season.

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This year features one of the best quarterback classes we’ve seen in recent years. Caleb Williams out of USC is the consensus top prospect, but North Carolina’s Drake Maye and LSU’s 2023 Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels aren’t far behind.

Here’s what’s fascinating: Chicago is set up to help its QB, regardless of who it is. And that should make Bears fans optimistic.

The Bears organization has never successfully developed a quarterback. What do you expect from a franchise that has historically gravitated toward the other side of the ball? The 1985 Chicago Bears defense revolutionized the way football is played. It was arguably the best defense in history. There’s a lot of pride there, and justifiably so.

And while the age-old adage that defense wins championships has rung true on plenty of recent occasions, the sophistication of the way football is played now means teams don’t get to the aforementioned championships without offense — and plenty of it.

Waldron comes from one of the league’s most esteemed coaching trees, having worked under Sean McVay in Los Angeles. He now has a great No. 1 receiver in D.J. Moore, who ranked sixth in receiving yards last year. Moore was top-10 in touchdowns too, taking the lion’s share of targets for the Bears in 2023. Waldron loves using tight ends in creative ways and he’ll now have Cole Kmet, who is coming off his best season as a pro. Primarily a blocking tight end in college at Notre Dame, Kmet has blossomed into an all-around player, catching 73 passes for 719 yards and six touchdowns last year.

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The Bears also started investing in the offensive line, taking right tackle Darnell Wright with their first pick of the 2023 draft. Wright had a great first season in the navy and orange. Guard Teven Jenkins has become a strength of the line when he’s on the field and the team signed veteran guard Nate Davis last offseason.

The front five could still use some work, particularly at center. Chicago will likely need another tight end or two to run Waldron’s offense effectively. There’s the ever-present running back debate, too. But the Bears are armed with nearly $50 million in cap space, not to mention those two top-10 picks along with three more in the top 100.

They also don’t have to worry about much on the defensive side of the ball. Sure, the Bears could use another edge rusher opposite Montez Sweat. What team couldn’t? They need to fortify the interior of their defensive line and could use more depth in the secondary. None of those are terribly pressing, which was evident toward the back half of the season, when Chicago picked the ball off more than any other team in the league and finished tied for the most interceptions of any team with the NFC Champion San Francisco 49ers. They found a pass rush, too.

The defense can give whoever is under center for Chicago extra chances; that’s the important part. That will be crucial for the development of a quarterback.

Don’t look now, but it seems like the Bears finally could. Now the question remains, which one will it be?

Carmen Vitali covers the NFC North for FOX Sports. Carmen had previous stops with The Draft Network and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. She spent six seasons with the Bucs, including 2020, which added the title of Super Bowl Champion (and boat-parade participant) to her résumé. You can follow Carmen on Twitter at @CarmieV.