Are the Bears really just a terrible 3-11 football team with little hope for the future and in need of changes at almost every level from top management through the coaching staff and throughout the locker room?

If you think about it, that’s been the bulk of the conversation over the second half of this season as national reporters have offered poorly sourced stories, first about a consultant coming in to evaluate the football operations, and then a legendary GM being brought in to oversee the current GM.

Or are they actually a team capable of playing much better, say 7-9 or even 8-8 football, were it not for an NFL-leading 18 players on injured reserve, including their two top quarterbacks, and having lost arguably their best offensive and best defensive players to four-game suspensions?

Honestly, folks, as I kick this around I see them more as the latter than the former.

No, injuries are absolutely not an excuse. But how has everyone forgotten so quickly this organization was the laughingstock of the NFL just 23 months ago, and in the first year of a complete rebuild they were a team at least looking like it was heading in the right direction?

With nothing to keep other than Kyle Long, Alshon Jeffery, Willie Young and maybe Jay Cutler and Kyle Fuller, in two seasons the Bears have added Jordan Howard, Jeremy Langford, Kevin White, Cameron Meredith, Josh Sitton, Cody Whitehair, Bobby Massie, Akiem Hicks, Eddie Goldman, Leonard Floyd, Pernell McPhee, Jerrell Freeman, Danny Trevathan and Tracy Porter.

Obviously we’ll get no consensus on Cutler, nor do we have any performance to judge Fuller on, but doesn’t it seem possible those other 17 players can be good, solid, everyday starters and at least four or five of them have real playmaking potential?

Why isn’t anyone asking the question: How far away is this team really from being where it should be in Year 3 of the new regime, capable of competing for nine or 10 wins and a playoff spot?

If those 17 players can each play 12-16 games next year, and hopefully most of them get closer to 16, I don’t know that they’re that far away at all.

What do they need to make it happen?

The Bears are currently 24th in the NFL in run/pass ratio, having thrown the ball 816 times and run it 317 times for a 38.85 percent mark.

More damning, only the Detroit Lions (309) and Cleveland Browns (288) have fewer rushing attempts than the Bears, and the Lions, Packers and Ravens are the only winning teams with lower ratios.

John Fox needs to figure out if this really is the offensive scheme he claimed as his.

The Bears also need a stud at left tackle, someone to anchor the line and lead the charge rather than a guy who’s good enough to get by with, and they need a healthy Zach Miller and a starter in front of him with the skills of a Martellus Bennett.

On defense, they need at least one more true five-technique, a big body that can demand double-teams and free up pass rushers.

And they need two safeties, at least one of whom can be a game-wrecker in the Earl Thomas/Eric Berry mold, and two more cornerbacks, although I’m not convinced yet that some of those guys aren’t already here in the form of Deiondre' Hall, Cre’Von LeBlanc, Bryce Callahan and Deon Bush.

Finally, of course, there is the quarterback, who I don’t think is here and won’t be easy to find – but do you have to find him right away?

Take a close look at the Miami Dolphins' depth chart, a team that was also 6-10 a year ago and 1-4 11 weeks ago.

They are slightly better than the Bears on the offensive and defensive lines, not as good at running back or linebacker, and similar everywhere else.

A Ryan Tannehill-type talent isn’t that hard to find.

They’ve already got the nine wins the Bears need to get next year.

Maybe these Bears aren’t as far away as you think they are.