Chicago Bears: In typical Chicago Bears fashion, the 2013 season showed plenty of signs for optimism only to end in crushing disappointment. Head coach Marc Trestman was able to turn around the long-suffering offense in his first year with the team, but of course as soon as the offense was fixed, the defense crumbled due to a combination of injuries and poor play from the front seven. The Bears head into 2014 with even more of a chip on their shoulder and their most promising roster since their NFC Championship run in 2010. Trestman's offensive system has made this unit one of the scariest in the league. Whether it's via the rushing game or the passing game, this team can hurt you and they should only be able to get better this year. Brandon Marshall is the model of consistency at wide receiver with seven straight 1,000 yard+ seasons, Alshon Jeffery is quickly becoming the league's next premier receiver thanks to his great hands and knack for making improbable catches and Matt Forte is one of the very few running backs left in the league that excels in every aspect of the game. Of course you can't go through talking about the Bears offense without mentioning one of the most polarizing figures in the NFL, quarterback Jay Cutler. The Bears handed a Cutler a huge new contract in January and now it is up to him to prove that he can lead this team and perform on a more consistent basis. With an offensive line now in place that actually will allow him time to make reads and not get murdered every time he throws, the excellent coaching from a lauded QB guru in Trestman and all the weapons around him, Cutler has never been in a better position to succeed in his career thus far. After years of being mocked by fans and analysts alike, I think this will be the year Cutler silences his critics and plays like the franchise QB he's always been capable of being. While Cutler may be considered by a lot of people to be the biggest thing holding the Bears back from being a contender, I think the play of the defense is ultimately going to determine whether or not the Bears can finally break their recent curse. The team went out and invested heavily on defense- especially on the defensive line- in the offseason to try and make sure the 2013 debacle doesn't happen again. Defensive end Lamarr Houston gives the Bears one of the best run-stopping defensive ends in the NFL while defensive ends Jared Allen and Willie Young should give the Bears the huge pass-rushing boost they needed after putting up a paltry 31 sacks in 2013. The interior line also underwent a big makeover as the team is relying on a combination of veterans in Jeremiah Ratliff (or as I like to call him "The Artist formerly known as Jay Ratliff"), Stephen Paea and Nate Collins and rookies Ego Ferguson and Will Sutton to become an effective run-stuffing rotation. After being the root of many of the problems in 2013, the play of the interior line is going to be an especially important factor if the Bears defense wants return to dominant form in 2014. The biggest question mark on this defense remains at safety, where the Bears have no clear starters enter to season. With Major Wright now with the Buccaneers and Chris Conte starting the season on IR, there is a currently battle going on between new veteran additions Ryan Mundy, M.D. Jennings, Adrian Wilson, Danny McCray and rookie Brock Vereen for the two starting spots. Safety play was a huge problem for the Bears last season, so hopefully whoever wins the jobs can provide some much-needed stability at the position. If the defense can play at least play relatively well throughout the year and Cutler doesn't go down for any extended period of time, I fell like the Bears can end their four-year playoff drought this season.
Detroit Lions: Much like their divisional counterparts in Chicago, The Lions had yet another season in 2013 that started out well only to end in the familiar ugliness and misery of a losing season. Their failure to win the division despite being in firm control in early November and losing six of the last seven games on the year caused the Lions to fire Jim Schwartz after five seasons as head coach. The Lions are coming into 2014 with a new head coach in Jim Caldwell, who is the antithesis to Schwartz in both personality and game-planning/what side of the ball takes precedence. Caldwell-who was the Colts head coach for three years after Tony Dungy retired and the offensive brainchild behind the Ravens Super Bowl run in 2012- has plenty of offensive weaponry to work with and will probably get more out of them than the defensive-minded Schwartz did. Not only will Caldwell will probably get more production of out this offense, he now has more weapons to work with than Schwartz did in any of his five years with the team. They helped out quarterback Matthew Stafford by bringing in veteran wideout Golden Tate and drafting tight end Eric Ebron to give them more trustworthy options in the passing game alongside the one and only Calvin Johnson. While Ebron may take some time to get acclimated to the NFL, Tate should make an instant impact on the flow and production of this offense as he gives the Lions their first legit number two wideout in years. These new weapons in the passing game paired with arguably the best running back tandem in the league in Reggie Bush and Joique Bell gives the Lions an opportunity to have the most potent offense they've had in the modern era. As usual with the Lions, just about the only weakness the team possesses is on the back end of the defense. The team once again did nothing to address their secondary problems in free agency or the draft. For whatever reason, the team has a lot of faith in young corners Darius Slay and Bill Bentley, despite the fact that they haven't produced much. The safety situation isn't much better as they have the decent but not overly productive Glover Quin and journeyman James Ihedbigo holding down the middle of the field. The Lions secondary isn't asked to do as much as most secondaries due to the quality of their defensive front, but they still manage to cost the Lions games due to their poor play. The Lions are moving in the right direction, but I don't think they have enough in the tank to have anything more than an outside chance of making the playoffs in 2014.
Green Bay Packers: The Packers are an old-school franchise that relies on the draft to build their team. Because of this approach to running a football team, the Packers don't change much on a year-to-year basis, which is both a good and bad thing. Aaron Rodgers is in the prime of his career and as long he's calling the shots, the Packers are going to be contenders. Though Rodgers is the type of guy that makes everyone around him it better, it helps that he has plenty of elite talent around him in the form of wide receivers in Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb and second-year running back Eddie Lacy. Nelson and Cobb are bound to get more targets this year now that James Jones and Jermichael Finley are out of the picture and they should live up to that challenge as they are two of the more consistently reliable wideouts currently in the league. While Cobb and Nelson are undeniably important to the success of this offense, Lacy has been a godsend for a Packers offense that struggled with the run for years. His old-school power back style has given the Packers a much needed additional facet to their offense that takes pressure off Rodgers and the receivers from being the team's sole source of offense. While the Packers still have much of the core of their team in tact, they just aren't as scary as they once were. The defense lacks any dynamic playmakers outside of Clay Matthews and can be easily beaten by any above-average offense. The team did draft a potentially elite safety in HaHa Clinton-Dix in the first round this year, but even if Dix ends up being a stud, he won't be enough to fix the general lack of talent they have throughout most of the defense. The Packers offense will keep them competitive and give them an edge over most teams, I just feel that they don't have the defensive firepower to beat a lot of the high-caliber teams in the NFC.
Minnesota Vikings: The Vikings are yet another team that has undergone a major makeover from 2013 to 2014. The team has brought in a new head coach in Mike Zimmer, offensive coordinator in Norv Turner and potential new starting quarterback in Teddy Bridgewater to hopefully get the Vikings back on track after a disastrous 2013 to follow-up their surprise playoff berth in 2012. Of all the Vikings offseason moves, bringing in Zimmer as the new head coach is the most intriguing. Zimmer has been one of the elite defensive coordinators in the NFL for over a decade and this head coaching opportunity is long overdue. If Zimmer's toughness and intelligence as a coordinator translates to the head coach position, Zimmer will turn around the Vikings in no time. Turner's presence as an offensive coordinator should also be very beneficial to the Vikings rebuilding effort. Turner did the best job he possibly could on a trainwreck Browns team in 2013 and with a lot more talent to work with in Minnesota, his impact should be much greater. Turner should especially make his mark in the passing game where the team has a rising star in wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson and a underrated tight end in Kyle Rudolph that could be deadly in Turner's tight-end friendly scheme. The Vikings weren't too active in free agency, but did make a few moves on defense- that were no doubt influenced by Zimmer- by signing defensive tackle Linval Joesph and cornerback Captain Munnerlyn to mid-level deals. Joesph and Munnerlyn were two of the most unsung players in the league in 2013 and under Zimmer's wing, have serious potential to be even better this season. Munnerlyn was an especially great pickup that gives second-year Xavier Rhodes a veteran mentor while also giving the Vikings a huge boost at a position that gave them a lot of problems a year ago. The Vikings comeback aspirations are being held up by one key position: quarterback. At the time of this publication, the Vikings have no official starting quarterback. Last year's main starter Matt Cassel and the rookie Bridgewater appear to be dueling for the spot, while longtime Viking Christian Ponder appears to be the odd man out. Whether it be Cassel, Bridgewater or Ponder who ends with the job, I don't know if any of these guys are truly the answer the Vikings are looking for at quarterback. Cassel looked good at times last year, but is ultimately too inconsistent to serve as the team's long term starter, Ponder has proven time and time again that he can't be a starter in the NFL and Bridgewater, while demonstrating some potential in OTA's and the preseason after a string of shaky pre-draft workouts, is far from a sure thing. The team may have the freak force of nature that is running back Adrian Peterson to fall back on, but the speed of the Vikings turnaround is going to depend on how well the starting quarterback plays. The Vikings are putting the right pieces in motion to return to relevancy, I just don't think 2014 will be the year that they actually do so.
Projected Standings for the NFC North:
1.Chicago Bears (11-5)
2.Green Bay Packers (10-6)
3.Detroit Lions (8-8)
4.Minnesota Vikings (6-10)
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