The Chicago Bears’ 2024 schedule has been called among the easiest in the NFL this season. That is based on the quality of opponents. However, that is impossible to predict because teams can often improve rapidly in one season. A better way to examine it should be through how it’s structured. How far do you have to travel? How long are the stretches of road games? Perhaps the most overlooked is how many games are you playing in a certain span. This is something on the mind of safety Jaquan Brisker and others in the locker room.
He sounded off on Twitter this past Tuesday. It wasn’t a long comment, but the implication was obvious: The Bears aren’t happy about a particular stretch of the schedule.
This refers to the team’s final stretch of the season in December. It starts on December 16th with a visit to Minnesota against the Vikings on Monday Night Football. Six days later, they go home for a rematch against the Detroit Lions. To round out the gauntlet, they face the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday Night football four days later. Three games in ten days. That is brutal stuff.
Jaquan Brisker has added reasons for being unhappy about this.
Not only is such a stretch dangerous to player health, but it isn’t the first time this team has endured something like it. Last year, the Bears dealt with a similar run between October 5th and 15th when they played Denver, Washington, and Minnesota. Not only did the Bears lose two of those three games, but they also suffered some brutal injury setbacks, including Justin Fields, Khalil Herbert, Roschon Johnson, Terell Smith, Equanimeous St. Brown, and Jaylon Johnson.
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That put the Bears in a 1-5 hole they could never climb out of. So yeah, it’s easy to understand why Jaquan Brisker is upset. That stretch killed any hopes they had of making the playoffs. There is a serious danger it could do so again, this time during the most important part of the season. Putting it early in the year is one thing but in December? That is cruel. One thing is clear. If the Bears somehow navigate that minefield to make the playoffs, they will be among the most battle-tested teams in the field.
