For a little while, you may have been fooled into thinking the Bears’ new general manager and coach had pulled it off—and were accomplishing two diametrically opposite things at once.
On one hand, the Bears were carrying, over the course of 2022, more than $90 million in dead cap charges, money allotted against the limit toward players no longer on the team. On the other hand, they were winning. They beat the Niners in the opener. They started 2–1. They climbed off the mat after a three-game losing streak to beat the Patriots on a Monday night in Foxborough to get back to 3–4.
They were gutsy, tough and hanging in contention. Then, the bottom fell out.
