Bears 2024 NFL Schedule Released for Caleb Williams, Rome Odunze's Rookie Season

The new-look Chicago Bears are ready to compete.

After making strides on the way to a 7-10 record that included a 5-3 finish during the 2023 campaign, the NFC North team traded quarterback Justin Fields and selected his replacement in Caleb Williams with the No. 1 overall pick of the 2024 NFL draft. There are now playoff expectations in place, and it starts with navigating the schedule.

2024 Chicago Bears Schedule

Full schedule information available on the team's official website.

Analysis

The Bears haven't made the playoffs since the 2020 season, but there is genuine momentum in place.

After all, Williams wasn't the only move. It also traded for six-time Pro Bowler Keenan Allen and drafted Rome Odunze at No. 9 overall, adding them both to a wide receiver group that already included DJ Moore.

The momentum started last year when they traded the No. 1 overall pick of the 2023 NFL draft to the Carolina Panthers for a package that included Moore and the NFC South team's first-round pick in the 2024 draft. All Moore did was post a career-best 1,364 receiving yards in his first season with Chicago while the Panthers finished with the worst record in the league.

That meant that first-round pick Carolina owed the Bears turned into the No. 1 overall selection, which gave them a unique opportunity to add an elite prospect in Williams to a team that finished 5-3 in the final eight games.

Sensing that opportunity, Poles also added Allen and running back D'Andre Swift this offseason. And Odunze essentially fell into the Bears' laps with the No. 9 pick after he helped lead Washington to the College Football Playoff national title game with 1,640 receiving yards in his final collegiate season.

The offense now has Moore, Allen, Swift, Odunze and Cole Kmet, while the defense has blue-chip players in Montez Sweat and Jaylon Johnson, among others.

If Williams delivers on the hype, a playoff run is far from out of the question.

Those playoff hopes also receive a boost from this last-place schedule, as the Bears will face the Panthers and Washington Commanders while the other teams in their division play more difficult opponents from the NFC East and NFC South. Chicago also faces the rebuilding New England Patriots as its one AFC East matchup.

If it can take advantage of those winnable games, it will provide more of a cushion against the NFC West and AFC South teams it will also face.

Matching up with the NFC West means games against three teams that finished with a winning record last season in the San Francisco 49ers, Los Angeles Rams and Seattle Seahawks. The AFC South also had three teams over .500 in the Houston Texans, Jacksonville Jaguars and Indianapolis Colts.

Young quarterbacks in C.J. Stroud, Trevor Lawrence and Anthony Richardson will test Chicago's defense and put pressure on Williams to keep up on the other end.

Pivotal Matchups

It wouldn't be a Bears schedule release if fans didn't immediately circle the matchups against the archrival Green Bay Packers, and this year is no different.

What would be different is Chicago actually winning those games.

Green Bay has won the last 10 games in the rivalry and is 25-3 in the last 28. Bears fans will quickly embrace Williams if he can flip the trajectory of the series against the Packers in the coming years, and it starts with the two during the 2024 campaign.

Those games, as well as divisional matchups against the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings, stand out, as the Bears will have to play well against the NFC North if they are going to be a playoff threat.

But the games against potential wild-card contenders will also be important.

It might be too much to ask the Bears to go from 7-10 to division champions, but a wild-card run isn't an unrealistic goal. That means winning head-to-head games against the Rams and Seahawks could go a long way toward potential tiebreakers for those coveted wild-card spots.

They are both at home, too, which makes it all the more important for Chicago to capitalize on these matchups.