Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

The Bears are just 4 days away from kickoff and I would like to put my two cents in before it's too late. I hear a lot of conjecture about the new team, and overall it seems to be quite polarized. I personally think the Bears will have an improved season from last year. Offensively, the Bears will be much more diverse. Matt Forte will be used appropriately (finally), Brandon Marshall will dominate as well as create openings for Alshon Jeffrey and the Bennetts and the offensive line seems to be significantly better than last year's squad. One of the most frequent concerns I hear is the challenge for Jay Cutler to pick up a new offense. People who fear this must have short-term memory loss. Jay Cutler has learned a new offensive scheme almost every year he has been in Chicago. It's been a part of his job description. So I don't worry about Cutler picking up the new offense, I worry about him protecting the football. Jay Cutler and Brett Favre are very similar quarterbacks. Both have rocket arms and both are criticized for turnovers due to forcing throws into coverage. Many games have been jeopardized or lost because of this and last year's season was stopped short by a bad game at Minnesota and a costly pick in the second Green Bay game. With that being said, if Trestman and Kromer can get the ball protection issues worked out with Cutler I think the Bears offense has a lot of potential to be very dangerous. Moving on with a new coach was a good thing for the Bears, but I must admit I was concerned for the legendary reputation of Chicago Bears defense when Lovie was replaced by an offensive guru (Trestman) as Head Coach. However, the new Defensive Coordinator, Mel Tucker, made a great decision to tune the old defensive scheme instead of overhaul it completely. He seems to have added a few more blitzes and has made competition for starting positions (MLB and LDE) bring out the best in those competing for the positions. I look forward to this season with some great expectations and I see no reason why the Bears should not be listed as one of the top NFC contenders this season.