(670 The Score) By virtue of finishing last in the NFC North in 2023, the Bears have a rather favorable schedule as they enter the 2024 season with heightened expectations. It's the fourth-easiest scheduled in the NFL based on opponents' winning percentage in 2023.
One of the main reasons the schedule is favorable – and perhaps more friendly than even initially assumed – is because they don’t face many opposing star quarterbacks. That fact was reinforced as Mike Sando of The Athletic surveyed NFL executives and coaches to establish quarterback rankings and then crunched numbers recently. By those calculations in The Athletic, the Bears face the second-worst collection of opposing quarterbacks.
The Bears don’t face any of the three tier-one quarterbacks in the league – Patrick Mahomes and his Chiefs, Joe Burrow and his Bengals and Josh Allen and his Bills. Of their 17 games, they only have seven matchups against tier-two quarterbacks – two against Jordan Love (Packers), two against Jared Goff (Lions), one against Matthew Stafford (Rams), one against C.J. Stroud (Texans) and one against Brock Purdy (49ers).
On the Mully & Haugh Show on Friday morning, the guys discussed the significance of this development.
“Hopefully they gain all sorts of momentum and confidence by virtue of beating up on bad players,” Mike Mulligan said.
“They should look at this as an invitation to intimidate,” David Haugh said.
Listen to the full segment in the audio player above.