If you would have polled 1,000 random NFL fans going into the 2024 season and asked them whether they'd rather have the Denver Broncos' setup or the Chicago Bears' setup going forward, I would guess at least 95 percent or more would have taken the Chicago Bears.
The Bears landed Caleb Williams with the #1 overall pick in the Spring and made a handful of other big splash moves like taking wide receiver Rome Odunze with the 9th overall pick and trading for Keenan Allen. They signed running back D'Andre Swift in free agency and have a budding stud at tight end in Cole Kmet. The Bears also had an improved defense based on what we saw last year, and they brought back almost everyone from that unit.
Meanwhile, the Denver Broncos were the team with the NFL's most "overrated" head coach in Sean Payton. They had the most dead salary cap space out of any team in the NFL and picked Bo Nix 12th overall in the 2024 NFL Draft. That decision was wildly unpopular among the NFL Draft community and the Broncos were the butt of most offseason jokes while the Bears were projected to compete with the Lions for the NFC North crown.
I am sure a lot of folks would still take the Chicago Bears' setup over the Denver Broncos, but if you ask me, everyone in Broncos Country should be excited to ignore the noise this offseason and be thankful they're not in the Chicago Bears' position going forward.
Chicago Bears have rough road ahead compared to Denver Broncos
The Chicago Bears are poorly managed from the top down, and you don't have to dig too deep to find Bears fans who wish the McCaskey family would sell the team. The Bears also have an issue right now with a general manager who has been piecing together his own roster while seemingly hanging onto too many remnants from the previous regime. Instead of a complete rebuild, Bears GM Ryan Poles tried to make it work with what Ryan Pace left behind and its culminated in a Frankenstein roster that might need to be rebuilt anyway.
Poles, a former offensive lineman himself, hasn't been able to put together a competent offensive line while searching for his franchise quarterback.
But perhaps the most alarming development this season is the early returns on the Caleb Williams investment. When Williams got to Chicago, he was supposed to be stepping into what was deemed by many to be the best situation a #1 overall pick has ever stepped into. On paper, there was certainly a lot to like about the weapons Williams had at his disposal, but the ineptitude of Chicago's offensive line was underestimated and Williams hasn't adjusted to the speed of the NFL as quickly as hoped.
Now, take that with a grain of salt, because I still think Williams is going to be a very good player in the league. But Williams has been sacked a whopping 67 times this season. You might look at his numbers and think it's great that he has only thrown six interceptions so far in his rookie season (with one game to play) but he's taken 67 sacks and fumbled the ball nine times.
The Bears fired their head coach in the middle of the season. They are entering the 2025 offseason with not only a major question mark at the head coach spot but right alongside that -- who is going to be helping develop Caleb Williams?
Even if the offensive line stinks, we've heard Broncos head coach Sean Payton say that sacks are a quarterback stat in the past and if that's the case, then Williams has a lot of work to do in terms of holding onto the football too long and making quicker/better decisions with the ball.
Meanwhile, Bo Nix has 27 total touchdowns and counting as a rookie. He has 11 interceptions this season, but he's been credited with just two fumbles and one of those fumbles came against the Chargers and wasn't even Nix's fault (it was the back's). Nix has taken just 22 sacks all season, one of the lowest sack rates in the NFL and right there with the likes of Lamar Jackson (23 sacks so far this year).
The Broncos have stability on their coaching staff. They have an infrastructure around Nix. They have tremendous cap flexibility going forward as well as ownership that has done everything in its power to prove they are all about getting this team back to winning ways. The Broncos have stability in all the right places right now and they've got four of their five offensive line spots locked up long-term, to boot.
Going into this season, it would have been easy to say the Bears' situation was preferable to the Broncos' over the long-term, but this year has given us every reason to be thankful with where the Broncos are at, and anything but envious about where the Bears are going into the offseason.