The Bears would be better off if they just lost the rest of their games this season.
In theory.
In theory, losing now will benefit this team later. Going 5-11 would probably be enough to get the Bears a top-10 pick, which would probably be enough to land them one of the four best quarterbacks in next year’s draft.
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So if you’re rooting for Trey Lance or Zach Wilson to come to Chicago? Go Lions, baby.
But the stink of losing is not always easy to wash off an organization. Especially when you’re a franchise like the Bears, which has done a lot more losing in the last decade than it’s done winning.
And while I think it’s time to blow up this iteration of the Bears, it’s not like *everybody* is going to be gone next year. If the Bears want to start rebuilding their roster, they also need to start rebuilding a culture of winning.
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Losing to the Lions and Texans and Vikings and Jaguars and Packers will not help create a culture of winning. It’ll just further a culture of losing.
And that kind of culture runs deep inside an organization. It might mean bolting from Halas Hall at 5 p.m. when, in 2018, you stayed for extra work until 6 p.m. (this goes for players, coaches, staff, etc). It might mean a month of feeling hopeless about your season and, by extension, your value as a player. It might mean just straight up losing members of the organization – not physically, but mentally.
“It was a little bit of everything,” Bears receiver Allen Robinson said of the culture issues he experienced while with the Jacksonville Jaguars. “A little bit of everything. … Just (the) overall culture just wasn’t where one should be at.”
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Losing stinks. It’s problematic no matter if Trevor Lawrence’s flowing locks are the light at the end of the tunnel.
Teams with the right coaches – like the Miami Dolphins last year and Carolina Panthers this year – can lose while building a winning culture. It's a tough needle to thread. And it's one that doesn't involve ending a season on a 10-game losing streak.
So yeah, it’s easy to say the Bears will be better off with a high draft pick in 2021 as the result of losing the rest of their games this year – including to some truly awful teams.
But it’s easy to say because we’re not in it. We’re not the humans doing the losing. And it’s not in any worthwhile coach or player’s DNA to try to lose.
You go and tell Khalil Mack the goal of the rest of the season is to not win.
So the Bears should do what they’re going to do the rest of the season: Try to win.
Maybe the Bears win a few more games. Maybe they won’t.
But if they stop trying to win now, it might not matter who they draft later.