Bears players react to 0-4 start |
CHICAGO - It has been rough for Chicago Bears fans, not seeing their team win a game since Monday, October 24, 2022. It has also been incredibly difficult for the players, those new to the team, and those who have been around for a few years.
“I think losing can be hard for guys to deal with, and it’s been hard for me to manage, but you have to find ways to get back to work and clear your mind every day. It’s hard. I haven’t won a game in almost a year now, and trust me, I take it home with me,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “It’s hard to deal with it, but we all have to be adults about it and be able to move on and be able to trust the process, and it can be hard to do sometimes when things aren’t going your way, and maybe you are not getting the targets you want and you’re not winning, and all those things kind of add up, and you get frustrated. But, you have to be a man about it, be an adult about it, and be able to reset your mind each and every week and just look to improve yourself individually.” In over 100 years, Chicago has had a total of 17 coaches. All of them have had at least 11 victories during their coaching tenure; head coach Matt Eberflus currently has three. His win percentage of 14.3% is also the lowest out of any head coach in franchise history. The next closest coach is Abe Gibron, who had a 27.4% winning percentage in his three years of coaching from 1972 to 1974. The NFL record for a losing streak in the modern era is 26 games by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 1976 to 1977; Chicago is over halfway there right now. Overall, the team has dealt with a lot of adversity as a result of losing. Eberflus is favored to be the next NFL head coach fired, with many calling for his firing to occur now. That would make him the first head coach in franchise history to get fired mid-season. Some players, such as linebacker Tremaine Edmunds who was acquired during the offseason, see this hardship as a way to build character and bring the team closer together. “Adversity is the No. 1 teacher,” Edmunds said. “It builds character within yourself, and it builds character with the people around you, and you just got to keep one foot in front of the other and just know that these storms are going to end one day, and we’re going to ready as a football team for sure.” Given all these negative losing statistics, it is easy for fans and players alike to go into panic mode. Besides, the Bears currently have a -62-point differential this season, which is the second-worst in the NFL (the Giants have a differential of -76). Chicago has allowed at least 25 points in 14 straight games and has lost all of them. That would seem like something to panic over. “Everything’s going to be alright. There’s no need for us to panic, no need for us to point fingers, and no need for us to divide,” Edmunds said. “If anything, we’ve come closer together now because that’s the type of men that we have, and I’m very confident that everybody believes that.” When you are losing this many games, there is only one place to go - up. At least, you would think. Still, given all of the losing that has occurred, particularly during quarterback Justin Fields’s career, as he has only won five games in the NFL, winning is the first goal before anything else. “Winning is just the No. 1 thing on my mind,” Fields said. “I’d rather do that than accomplish any individual goal or individual statistic that there is. So, I’m just trying to get it done.”
