What are the biggest what ifs for the Chicago bears in the recent past?
The first thing that comes to mind is tom Brady saying he almost signed with the bears before joining the buccaneers
I can’t even imagine what this team would look like today if that happened.
42 comments
That certainly would have kept him from getting another ring lol
Easily the double doink. We had everything we needed to win it all
It’s the Russell Wilson trade for sure. We would have given up 2 first, other picks, players, and signed him to a massive extension. Would have set us back at least a year or two
I mean, they could have drafted Mahomes over Trubisky.
Bears hire Arians.
If we never draft Cedric Benson for 2000+
If Charles Martin doesnt hurt Jim McMahon for super bowl era pre 2000
If Hallas didnt bail out the packers for pre super bowl era
What if we don’t trade the 1OA to the panthers
Taking Trubisky over Mahomes.
Like it or not, you judge how the results turned out and not the full context.
Mahomes is one of the most successful NFL players ever, and Trubisky is a career backup.
The second would be the double Doink. The nfc that year was pretty wide open and we already proved we could beat the rams.
What if we cloned Devin Hester 53 times?
What if we accepted that field goals are ok.
What if the Texans lost to the Colts?
What would have happened if they didn’t fire Lovie
What if Aaron Donald fell to the Bears in 2014… we were one pick away from
What if it didn’t rain for Super Bowl XLI…
2010. What if the bears beat the packers? Rodgers doesnt get his only superbowl. Maybe if the bears win, Cutler career goes in a different direction. He was looking awesome in 2011 before the injury. I think that win would have changed the course of the whole nfc north.
The biggest ‘what ifs’ in recent-ish Bears history are:
1.) What if the Bears offense comes to life in Super Bowl 41 and the defense manages to stop Peyton Manning and we win that game?
2.) What if Jay Cutler doesn’t get hurt in the 2010 NFC Championship game? Do we manage to beat the Packers and go to the Super Bowl?
Brother this made me hard and then flaccid right away. What have you done?
An obvious one is what if Jim McMahon didn’t get hurt on the cheap shot against GB.
But mine is, what if Bears didn’t trade for Cutler. We’d have had Orton for one more year and then Peyton Manning would have been available to us to match with an excellent defense.
What if we never traded with Carolina
What if they kicked the two field goals instead of going for it on fourth down in the Rams game
100% taking Trubisky over Mahomes. If we don’t trade up for Trubisky and take Mahomes at 3rd overall (he was the next QB drafted and went 10th), then we also keep our third round pick (which was used to draft Alvin Kamara) and the third rounder in the next year’s draft (which SF used to draft Pro Bowler Fred Warner). Just terrible.
Thought this was a “what if?” Involving Jonathan Quinn at first glance.
I wonder what Bruce Arians would have been able to do here
Maybe not biggest what if but If Justin Fields hadn’t fallen where would we be at for QB? no one good was left and 2022 was trash for QBs (no one saw Purdy coming) might we have gone OL and then a FA QB (baker, darnokd, rivers, dalton) as our starter.
I like to think if Kevin White had been the freak we thought we were getting he could have really put that 2018 team over the edge.
Ted Phillips vetoed trade parameters negotiated by Mark Hatley to draft LaDanian Tomlinson. After that, then later in the same draft Ted did the same for Deuce McAllister. Bears ended up with David Terrell and Anthony Thomas.
Tomlinson would’ve been an offensive game changer for years. I know this is further back than most are posting, but a lot don’t know this story.
One that I’ve thought about.
In the 2018 season, if Bears don’t blow it against the dolphins, I think that gives them the number two seed in the NFC instead of the rams.
I think that means we likely would have played the Rams, at home again, in the second round.
I think we likely win that one. So the bears go on the road against New Orleans in the NFCC, who knows what happens then?
Maybe we end up playing the Patriots, again, in the super bowl. Who we had a close game with earlier in the season.
What if Kurt Warner don’t get bit on the elbow by a bug
A lot of people forget about this:
What if Jay Cutler didn’t get hurt in 2011.
We were 7-3 and had three straight 30-point games along with a solid defense. That was probably the best team we had in the Cutler era.
I’ll get hate for this but whatever.
What if Fields didn’t spend the first 3 years of his career being coached by 2 of the worst to ever do it?
The easiest answer is what if Mike Brown could stay healthy, guy was all time on the field
If Caleb Hanie was the QB2 instead of Todd Collins and played at the start of the 3rd quarter in the 2010 NFC North Championship game.
On a similar riff to the Brady and Arians ones: we wanted to interview Belichick for HC in 1999 after Wannstedt got canned, but he turned us down and chose to return to the Jets for another year.
Not that I’d trust this team to avoid botching that too like with the Dave McGinnis debacle in reality, but it’s easy to wonder what could’ve been.
what if we went for a field goal on the first drive of the divisional round
Bears could have had mahomes
What if we had drafted Mahomes instead of Trubisky?
What if the refs had done the right thing and declared the Super Bowl over immediately after Hester’s kick return TD?
Hmmm what if parkey didn’t double doink and made it instead
Taking Mahomes instead of Trub
What if Caleb had taken the open 8 yard check down to the flat, rather than throwing a 20 yard down field pass in OT against the Rams when all they needed was a field goal to win?
Brady would’ve been ruined and out of the league under Jauron…
what if the 85 Bears beat the dolphins and we never had to see that stupid champagne celebration ever again?