A New Wrinkle to This Year’s Bears’ Schedule
What if I told you that the Bears won’t play an NFC North opponent until Week 11, forcing them into intra-divisional games in six of the season’s final eight weeks? The second half of the season will feel like every game is a postseason tilt. Stock up on your preferred brand of antacids.
At least the video release is a warm and wonderful tribute to filmmaker John Hughes. Anthony “Spice” Adams is wonderful as the school principal, but Matt Eberflus could use some acting lessons. Jake Johnson provides the narration.
The season moves pretty fast.
If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. pic.twitter.com/MpXMPEcTD6
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) May 16, 2024
Here’s Chicago’s entire schedule, though most of it was leaked throughout the day. I don’t mind not being first. I’d much rather relay it accurately.
- Week 1: September 8 vs. Tennessee Titans, noon CT
- Week 2: September 15 at Houston Texans (Sunday Night Football), 7:20 PM
- Week 3: September 22 at Indianapolis Colts, noon
- Week 4: September 29 vs. Los Angeles Rams, noon
- Week 5: October 6 vs. Carolina Panthers, noon
- Week 6: October 13 vs. Jacksonville Jaguars (in London at 8:30 AM CT)
- Week 7: BYE
- Week 8: October 27 at Washington Commanders, noon
- Week 9: November 3 at Arizona Cardinals, 3:05 PM
- Week 10: November 10 vs. New England Patriots, noon
- Week 11: November 17 vs. Green Bay Packers, noon
- Week 12: November 24 vs. Minnesota Vikings, noon
- Week 13: November 28 at Detroit Lions (Thanksgiving Day), 11:30 AM
- Week 14: December 8 at San Francisco 49ers, 3:25 PM
- Week 15: December 15 at Minnesota (Monday Night Football) 7:15 PM
- Week 16: December 22 vs. Detroit, noon
- Week 17: December 26 vs. Seattle Seahawks (Thursday Night Football), 7:15 PM
- Week 18: January 5 at Green Bay, TBD
The Bears officially kick off the 2024 NFL season with this Year’s Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio. They’ll play the Texans on August 1 at 7:00 PM CT in what should mark the rookie debuts of QB Caleb Williams and WR Rome Odunze. Former Bears players Steve McMichael, Devin Hester, and Julius Peppers are among this year’s inductees. They play at Buffalo on August 10, at home against the Bengals on August 17, and at Kansas City on August 22.
Tickets for home and away games can be purchased through Ticketmaster starting this evening at 8:15 PM CT.
The back end of that regular season schedule is loaded with edge-of-our-seats games and will be awfully fun to watch. The Bears are lucky that those games come after a brutal stretch starting in mid-October that takes them from London to Chicago, and then to Washington D.C. after a bye week, followed by a trip to Arizona.
Chicago will travel internationally for the first time in five years when the Bears host the Jaguars at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Oct. 13. The Bears will also play that game as the host team.
Consistent ball placement. ? If Caleb Williams can be consistent on in breaking routes and crossers with the weapons the #Bears have ? YAC!
— Sky Kruse (@KruseSports_) May 14, 2024
Chicago gets what should be a gimme game against the Patriots on November 10 before running the table against the Packers Vikings, and Lions. The brutal eight-week stretch to conclude the regular season also includes games against the 49ers and Seahawks, but the good news is that Caleb Williams will have plenty of time to get acclimated to the pace of the NFL in the first half of the season.
The Bears haven’t finished better than 2-4 in NFC North games since 2019 and once again close the regular season at Green Bay, where they were unable to keep the Packers from clinching a spot in the playoffs in January.
Williams will go head-to-head with six of the NFL’s youngest quarterbacks in the first 10 weeks of the season, including highly anticipated matchups against Jayden Daniels, this year’s No. 2 pick, when Chicago plays at the Commanders in Week 8. Two weeks later, the Bears will host Drake Maye, the draft’s third pick, and the Patriots.
The Bears will undoubtedly hope to get off to a fast start, so those front nine games are just as important as the back eight. Going 6-3 would leave the Bears in an ideal position to make the postseason. That said, a disastrous start to the season will be disastrous. A 4-4 finish is admittedly wishful thinking. Let’s hope Chicago can bank some wins before that first game against the Packers.
