As the Chicago Bears continue to struggle to win games, Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy sees similarities to what he went through and has advice.
The Chicago Bears are in the beginning stage of their latest rebuild. General manager Ryan Poles had to blow up the roster, shipping out popular veterans who had big contracts and who did not fit the new regime’s vision for the team.
He replaced them with cheap replacements and draft picks. For next offseason, Poles and the Bears will have a huge war chest of at least $125 million in salary cap space and a number of draft picks. They are now in a great position to speed up the rebuild.
In the present, however, Chicago Bears Nation had to suffer through another frustrating and losing season. The team is currently 3-10, losers of six straight games and nine of their last ten.
Things don’t look better as Chicago comes out of its bye week. They face three teams that are among the best in the NFL (Philadelphia Eagles, Buffalo Bills, and Minnesota Vikings) and a much-improved Detroit Lions team (that already beat the Bears) with an outside chance of making the playoffs. The Bears hold the third overall pick in the draft and could end up with the second pick (the Houston Texans look like a lock at the top).
Hall of Fame coach sees similarities with his experience and offers advice
Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy had an incredible career. He had a 148-79 coaching record and won a Super Bowl with the Indianapolis Colts. Additionally, he helped build up the Tampa Bay Buccaneers team that won the Super Bowl under Jon Gruden.
Dungy sees similarities between what he went through in rebuilds and what the Chicago Bears and head coach Matt Eberflus are going through now. He experienced mounting losses at the starting point of a rebuild.
When he took over as head coach of the Bucs in 1996, the team lost its first five games of the season and eight of its first nine. However, Dungy had his team in most of the games and the Bucs went 5-2 the rest of the way.
Dungy sees how, despite all of the losses, the Eberflus has his team competing in most games. Sure, there are the occasional blowouts, but not as many as most NFL experts projected.
Dungy feels that going through those close games will help the team going forward. The Bears will be playing teams in the playoffs so they should treat it like they are in the same situation. He said the team will be in those situations in the future so they will be better prepared. Eventually, the Bears will break through as his Bucs did in 1996.
The Bears are a young team. While many of the players on the roster won’t be there going forward, some of the key young players will still be there. They are gaining valuable experience that will help them greatly in the future. They can take it from Dungy himself.We were out of the playoffs,,, We played the Bears the last game of the season. We said, ‘Hey, let’s treat this as if we win and we’re going to the playoffs.’ We knock the Bears off. Wouldn’t you know it. A year later to the date, we’re playing the Bears again and if we win, we have a home playoff game. We were ready for it because we had gone through it the year before.
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