NFL 2016: Regular season grades for every team
By John Buhler
There were only two teams in the NFC that everybody knew were going to be horrible and were horrible. The least egregious of the two were the toothless Chicago Bears. They were a simple, albeit complex problem of a football organization in 2016, entertaining at times, but mostly just bad.
One could blame health at the quarterback position for the Bears’ terrible campaign. Jay Cutler was hurt for most of the season, but the Windy City faithful knew that 2016 was Cutler’s Last Stand. Brian Hoyer was a decent backup, but broke his wrist mid-season versus the Packers.
Matt Barkley actually played well filling in for both Bears signal callers. That was until he threw fives picks in Week 16 against the Washington Redskins at home. Jordan Howard and Leonard Floyd had their moments as rookies, but this team had been poorly constructed for years, culminating in another top-10 pick.
John Fox had been on and off the hot seat all season in Chicago. Ownership is not doing a good job of making this once-proud NFC franchise a good landing spot for prospective coaching candidates. Overall, the Bears were more entertaining and competitive than the 2015 squad, but remain one of the worst teams in the NFC by a wide margin. Until further notice, this is easily the worst team in the NFC North without question.