On Thursday nights the National Football League has a deal with Amazon to show a game. Now according to the set-up of that deal every team has to appear on Thursday night football. This past Thursday we may have gotten the worst game possible.
Thursday’s game had the Chicago Bears hosting the Washington Commanders. Somehow the Bears had stumbled into 2 wins this season while the Commanders came into the game with just 1 win.
Both teams played like someone had to win this game and neither team really wanted to find a way to win. In the end Washington got the victory 12-7 over Chicago. Washington only manages to score their game winning touchdown because Velus Jones Jr. muffed a punt inside the red zone and Washington ended up recovering that fumble on the 6-yardline.
Even though Washington won the game their quarterback Carson Wentz only threw for 99 yards. Wentz went 12 of 22 on passes in the game and ended up with a quarterback rating of 22.5. Wentz didn’t throw a touchdown pass, but at least he didn’t throw any interceptions.
Now Justin Fields wasn’t much better for the Bears. Fields went 14 for 27 on his passing attempts for 190 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception. Fields did end up as the Bears leading rusher in the game. Fields ran the football 12 times for 88 yards.
Now each of these teams has 2 wins while there are five teams with just 1 win as the rest of Week 6 gets ready to roll tomorrow. The reason this could be interesting is that both the Bears and the Commanders may be in the market for a new quarterback, so their draft position would be important as well as which teams would be picking in front of them.
Would Washington or Chicago be interested in one of the quarterbacks that could be in the 2023 draft? C.J. Stroud of Ohio State, Will Levis of Kentucky, Bryce Young of Alabama, Anthony Richardson of Florida, Hendon Hooker of Tennessee and D.J. Uiagalelei of Clemson could all be 1st round quarterbacks in the 2023 draft. Would either the Bears or the Commanders be looking at one of these young quarterbacks to take over under center for them next season?
Of course, we have no idea how these quarterbacks will be ranked coming into the draft or how they’ll actually be drafted. One team might like one quarterback more than another quarterback and move up in the draft to take him even though his ranking didn’t have him being drafted that high. As we’ve seen with quarterbacks before it doesn’t always matter where you’re drafted, but which team drafts you. If a player falls into a system that he fits into well he might find success right away, but if he ends up in a system that doesn’t work for him, or he goes to a rebuilding team there might be some struggles early in his career.
The question the Bears have to answer with Fields will be if his struggles are because he’s with a rebuilding team and he’s their franchise quarterback or if they were wrong when they traded up to take Fields with the 11th pick of the 2021 draft.
As for Wentz, Washington is his third stop as a starting quarterback and if it doesn’t work out with the Commanders it would be doubtful that another team would bring him in as their starter.
Wentz was the 2nd pick in the 2016 draft by the Philadelphia Eagles and his career got off to a decent start. The Eagles went 7-9 in 2016 with Wentz as their starter, but in 2017 Philadelphia went 11-2 in their first 13 games with Wentz under center. Unfortunately, Wentz got injured, but as for the Eagles they went on to win the Super Bowl.
Wentz spent five seasons with the Eagles before he was traded to the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts went 9-8 with Wentz as their starter last season. He was much maligned in Indianapolis and ended up being traded again this time to his current team the Commanders.
Now no one thought that Washington or Chicago would be playoff teams this season as both are rebuilding. Washington appeared to have started their rebuild last season while the Bears just got there’s underway this past off season. Who knows if or how long it will take either of these teams to be considered contenders again, but they’ll each need a quarterback to build around and both of these teams will have to decide if their current starting quarterback is the one, they’re going to build around.
Just for reference the last time that Washington was in the Super Bowl was when they won it in 1991. As for the Bears they last went to the Super Bowl in 2006, but they haven’t won a Super Bowl since 1985.
Here’s a couple of interesting question for you. Which of these teams do you think will make the Super Bowl first? And how far off do you think that Super Bowl appearance is?
You can also find me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.
That was a horrific game on Thursday and I couldn’t be able to make any kind of a accurate prediction as to when either of these teams would be in the super bowl. But I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that Fields is yet another QB bust for Chicago.
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