I\u2019m reminded of a couple of things every year I kick off this annual summer series. One, the Chicago Bears just haven\u2019t been very good during my run here at Windy City Gridiron. More often than not, the Bears I rank as most important to the team\u2019s upcoming season fail to come through big enough to make a difference.<\/p>\n
And two, I\u2019m getting old!<\/p>\n
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Sure, age is all relative, but this was the first project I tackled when becoming an official writer here at WCG in 2009, which makes this my seventeenth 10 Most Important Bears series.<\/p>\n
In that time, I\u2019ve only covered three winning seasons.<\/p>\n
That changes this year. I can feel it.<\/p>\n
Before I kick off the 2025 version of the series, I always take a look back to get a sense of what went wrong. Here\u2019s my look back from last year featuring a whole lot of yikes.<\/p>\n
As a reminder, importance is subjective, so here\u2019s the basic criteria I came up with back in 2009 to help guide me through my initial series.<\/p>\n
What potential impact they may have, how much the team will look to the individual for guidance or leadership, how badly the team would suffer if they lost the player to injury, and other intangible attributes.<\/p>\n
If we\u2019re being honest, there\u2019s no right or wrong way to rank \u201cimportance,\u201d so think of these as just a fun way to get us all discussing what could be for our favorite team.<\/p>\n
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Here\u2019s last season\u2019s list, and you can click on the link on each name to see the reasoning I had in my articles from last year.<\/p>\n
10) Kevin Byard – The veteran safety did bounce back from an uneven 2023 to help stabilize the secondary. It\u2019s just too bad there were some other issues on what could have been one of the better secondaries in the league.<\/p>\n
9) Ryan Bates or Coleman Shelton (Center) – Shelton won the gig by default, and after a rough start, he settled down and played decent football.<\/p>\n
8) D\u2019Andre Swift – I wouldn\u2019t call Swift\u2019s signing a miss, but he had an awful start, and it took the Bears some time to understand how to work him into the offense.<\/p>\n
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