The Chicago Bears have a lot of work to do coming off a five-win season, and running back Jordan Howard is confident they are going to have a complete turnaround in 2018.
In an appearance on NFL Network’s “Good Morning Football” on Monday, Howard was asked to give a prediction about next season. While that can be nearly impossible to do with the offseason hardly underway, he had no problem making a bold claim.
“The Bears are definitely going to have a winning season. We’re going to get to the playoffs,” Howard said. “So I guarantee we get to the playoffs.”
There has already been plenty of optimism that new head coach Matt Nagy can get more out of first-round pick Mitchell Trubisky than John Fox did, and that won’t take much. As Howard notes, the Bears lost a number of close games last season and remained competitive even with a rookie quarterback.
“Football is football. We can compete with anybody,” he added. “We showed that in a lot of games last year. The Vikings, the first game they beat us by three points. The Lions beat us by three points. The Packers, we struggled with the first game; the second game we almost beat them. We can compete with anybody in the NFL. You’ve always got to be confident. If you’re playing the game, you might as well be confident. If you’re not confident there’s no reason to play.”
The Bears have not been to the playoffs since 2010, so it’s hard to envision them going from their fourth consecutive last place finish to a playoff berth. Trubisky will have to take a big sophomore leap and Chicago’s front office will have to get him some targets to throw to. And that would just be the start of it.
You can’t fault Howard for being optimistic. Plus, the last time a Bears player made a bold prediction about the upcoming season, he ended up being spot-on. Though, that one came with a bit of a disclaimer.
