Imrem: Chicago Bears' rebuild has barely started
Chicago Bears head coach John Fox perfectly summed up Sunday's 24-20 loss to the Lions.
"Today," he said, "was pretty much a microcosm of our season."
Close game. Competitive. Entertaining. Not good enough in the end.
So here the Bears are with some unflattering truths: 6-10 overall record, 1-7 in Soldier Field and 1-5 in the NFC North.
Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!
This being Fox's first season with the Bears, it's time to assess exactly what was accomplished in 2015.
Progress was the assignment, and the most impactful steps forward occurred last January: 1. Firing general manager Phil Emery; 2. Firing head coach Marc Trestman; 3. Uh, we'll have to get back to you when we know definitively what this one might be.
If this was the start of something with Fox and new general manager Ryan Pace, it was more like barely the start of the start than the cusp of Super Bowl contention.
The Bears don't have a collection of significant core players going forward. Nor did they demonstrate major improvement after losing four of their final five games.
The 2015 season was devoted to sweeping away the past left by Emery and Trestman rather than spiffing up the future with Pace and Fox.
Myriad questions greeted last off-season - including on the roster, locker-room leadership, franchise culture - and this off-season begins with as many or more.
The coach himself is among them: Is the strategically conservative Fox the man to nurse the Bears from Point A to Point B and ultimately to Point C as in championship?
Maybe Fox's history of taking Carolina and Denver to the Super Bowl says he is. Then again, maybe what we saw this season leaves some doubt.
The quarterback remains a question: Is Jay Cutler ever going to be good enough to lead a team into a Super Bowl, or will he be at best someone a team can carry there, or will he never be either?
Cutler has drawn raves for improving this season, but nobody can be sure that he won't revert to his erroneous self when the game plans advance from dink-and-dunk to wide open.
The coordinators remain among the questions: Will progress evolve into regress if Adam Gase on offense and/or Vic Fangio on defense leave for head-coaching jobs elsewhere?
Gase is credited with making Cutler look like a credible NFL quarterback and Fangio with making the defense respectable after two seasons of historic ineptitude.
Coaching instability is the last thing the Bears need at this point in the rebuild even if Fox has a habit of finding outstanding assistants.
Pace might be at the top of the Bears' list of questions: Is he a prodigy of a general manager capable of assembling a winning team or just another guy capable only of collecting individual players?
Pace did a reasonable job of bringing in role players, fringe types and character guys, but now he has to find playmakers on all three sides of the ball.
Now, can Robbie Gould keep his kicking foot on straight? Can Alshon Jeffery figure out how to stay healthy if he returns? Can common contract ground be found to retain Matt Forte?
All these questions will have to be answered because close, competitive and entertaining only goes so far for so long.
Cutler said when asked whether progress was made this season, "I would definitely say something like that."
Still, from here the start of the actual start continues to seems like a ways away.
mimrem@dailyherald.com