The Bears roster looks vastly different than the last time the Atlanta Falcons faced off against Chicago, take a look at their key additions.
The Atlanta Falcons and Chicago Bears are all set to square off in Week 1 of the regular season in the Windy City, as both teams made their final cuts on Saturday afternoon. While seeing players lose jobs is never fun, it does mean that we are that much closer to regular season football. Not to mention, it means that there won’t be a Sunday without football until February — I know, I’m beyond excited too.
It doesn’t seem that long ago, but these two franchises haven’t met up on the field since the 2014 regular season. The Bears ended up winning the game 27-13, as Matt Forte had 17 carries for 80 rushing yards and two touchdowns for Chicago.
It was a much different time in 2014 for both of these teams, since the Bears were still relying on Jay Cutler to be their future at quarterback and the Falcons were finally realizing Mike Smith may not be their best choice for head coach any longer.
Fast forward to now, and the Falcons are looking to make it back to the Super Bowl and Chicago is hoping they can finish somewhere around 8-8. That being said, let’s take a look at some of the Bears players Atlanta fans should take notice of, heading into Week 1 of the regular season.
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For starters, Chicago will be leaning on three quarterbacks to carry the load in 2016: Mike Glennon, Mark Sanchez and Mitchell Trubisky. While none of those guys strike fear into the hearts of defensive coordinators, they do have more than enough NFL experience, outside of the rookie from North Carolina.
At their running back spot, it looks as though the Bears will be depending upon Jordan Howard again in 2017, but the depth behind the former UAB and Indiana player isn’t very promising.
That being said, the biggest difference between the Bears offense of past, is their receiving corps. The team will be carrying five receivers this season: Joshua Bellamy, Kevin White, Deonte Thompson, Markus Wheaton and Kendall Wright. That’s one of the most sorriest groups wideouts I’ve ever seen. No offense to the Bears and acknowledging that they lost Cameron Meredith to injury, that’s still just plain ugly. The Falcons defensive secondary better be ready to eat on Sept. 10.
On the defensive side of the football, Johnathon Bullard, Leonard Floyd, Sam Acho, Jerrell Freeman, Danny Trevathan, Prince Amukamara and Kyle Fuller will be looking to make this Bears defense formidable again.
Chicago gave up 24.5 points per game last season, which placed them as the ninth worst scoring defense in the league. Needless to say, that’s not encouraging news for Bears fans knowing the Falcons are coming in with the highest scoring offense from a year ago.
Next: NFL QB Power Rankings 2017: Week 1
That being said, no one has ever won an NFL game on paper. The only thing that matters is who will rise up on Sept. 10 and earn their first real victory of the 2017 season.