The NFL’s 2024 schedule will be released in full on Wednesday, but games have already started rolling out as the league churns out the slow stream of content that has come to characterize it over the past decade.
Three of the first four primetime games are known as of this writing, with only the “Sunday Night Football” game yet to be announced.
We have no clarity on Caleb Williams and the Bears’ 2024 schedule, although they are expected to face the Jacksonville Jaguars in London in early October.
With the release of the schedule just over 24 hours away, here are the five questions regarding the Bears’ path. (The opponents have been known for months, but the pace is important.)
Welcome to the show
Williams’ arrival has already added a wave of attention around a franchise that has mostly vacillated between moribund and mediocre over the past decade.
The 2022 Heisman Trophy winner enters the NFL as one of the hottest prospects in recent memory, so it would make sense for the league to feature Williams and the Bears’ offseason darlings in Week 1.
But the San Francisco 49ers and New York Jets will play Monday night, while the Dallas Cowboys and Cleveland Browns will benefit from the 4:25 p.m. Sunday slot on FOX for the announcement of Tom Brady’s debut.
That leaves “Sunday Night Football” as the only big slot for Williams’ professional debut. A home game against the Detroit Lions would check a lot of boxes, especially with the Green Bay Packers opening in Brazil on Friday against the Philadelphia Eagles.
But it’s also the 100th anniversary of the New York Giants, so the league could give them Sunday night slot and push Williams’ prime-time debut back another week.
I’m interested in the time slot of Williams’ debut and the selected opponent. A game against the Lions or Minnesota Vikings seems likely. But the NFL could also opt for a sexier road game, potentially against CJ Stroud and the Houston Texans, to push Williams’ home debut to a prime-time spot in Week 2.
No. 1 versus No. 2
The Bears will face the Washington Commanders for the third consecutive season. The previous two were “Thursday Night Football” affairs, but this year’s fight comes with the added intrigue of Williams returning home to Washington, D.C., to face No. 2 overall pick Jayden Daniels and the Commanders.
Will the NFL give Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit a third straight Bears vs. Commanders game? It’s an easy prime time slot to market the two top picks going head-to-head. However, the NFL could also see this as an attractive matchup for Williams and Daniels to open their NFL careers, perhaps as the marquee matchup early in the Week 1 Sunday window.
Much vaunted class
We know the Bears will face Williams and the Commanders, but it’s unclear if he’s the only member of the vaunted 2024 class they’ll see.
The Bears are scheduled to host the New England Patriots and will meet the division rival Vikings twice. The Patriots drafted quarterback Drake Maye with the third overall pick, while the Vikings traded up a spot at No. 10 to select Michigan’s JJ McCarthy.
However, Maye and McCarthy will enter training camp in quarterback battles against Jacoby Brissett and Sam Darnold, respectively.
Will the Bears face Maye or McCarthy?
If these games are early in the schedule, the Bears’ chances of seeing Brissett and/or Darnold increase.
But if the matchups fall into the back half of the roster, it becomes more likely they’ll see two of the quarterbacks they briefly evaluated en route to selecting Williams.
The future of rivalry
The exodus of Aaron Rodgers gave the Bears a brief glimmer of hope in their rivalry with the Green Bay Packers.
That hope was quickly dashed in Week 1 last year when Jordan Love and the Packers beat the Bears at Soldier Field to open the season.
The Bears concluded the season by scoring nine points in a loss at Lambeau Field.
Love weathered the early season bumps and looked like a top 10 quarterback during the second half of the season.
The Packers have done it again.
But things should be different this time. In Williams, the Bears finally have a game-changing quarterback who can match up against a star Packers signal-caller. At least that is the hope and belief.
The first Williams vs. Love match should mark the start of the next 10 years of this historic rivalry.
Williams’ first game against the Packers could end up being a “where were you when” moment in Bears history.
Reference game
Everyone in the weakened NFC is chasing the San Francisco 49ers. General manager John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan have built a team that has been among the best in the league for half a decade, and they will once again enter the season as one of the Super Bowl favorites.
The Bears will visit Levi’s Stadium this fall in a game that will give them an early barometer of where they stand relative to the conference’s top dog.
The 49ers have blue-chip players at every premium position, including a dynamic offense with running back Christian McCaffrey, wide receivers Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk and tight end George Kittle.
How will the Bears’ ascending defense hold up? Can Williams and the offense hold up against an elite defense led by defensive end Nick Bosa and linebacker Fred Warner?
General manager Ryan Poles has quickly improved the Bears’ roster, and at Halas Hall the belief is that the competitive window begins now.
A matchup against the 49ers will give them a data point to see how realistic those beliefs are.
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