The concept of ChatGPT is fraught with dangers as well as potential. But there’s no question that it has become a runaway 21st century phenomenon as an increasingly influential tool in how information is gathered, disseminated, and used.
However, at IllinoisBet.com – your home for IL sports betting coverage – we called on ChatGPT for a relatively innocuous task. But it produced results that can stir some wholesome sports debate.
For this exercise, the question posed to ChatGPT was: “Who are the Top 10 Chicago Bears of all-time?”
ChatGPT prefaced its answer by saying, “As an AI language model, I do not have personal preferences or the ability to form opinions. However, I can provide a list of the top 10 Chicago Bears players based on statistical achievements, impact on the team, and overall legacy. They are in no particular order.”
While the list is supposedly in “no particular order”, arguably the order of the all-time Bears presented by ChatGPT is pretty sound. Which is to say, it’s the order that we generally agree with, barring a few exceptions.
No players from the past decade are on this list. Small wonder fans can use the BetMGM bonus code Illinois today and get +5000 odds on the Bears winning the Super Bowl in February 2024.
What Is ChatGPT?
For some background on ChatGPT, we offer this: It is an artificial intelligence chatbot device created by a San Francisco-based company called OpenAI which, in part, calls itself an artificial intelligence research and deployment company. In a short time, an awareness of the device has grown as companies and everyday people have started using it. The program is trained to follow an instruction in a prompt and provide a detailed response.
According to Internet sources, ChatGPT has about 100 million users around the world.
So, here are ChatGPT’s 10 greatest Chicago Bears of all-time. IllinoisBet takes some exceptions, but there’s no doubt that if Bears backers had Illinois sportsbook apps in the days when some of these guys played, they would have enjoyed the results:
ChatGPT’s Top 10 Chicago Bears of All-Time
Walter Payton is No. 1, Of Course
As far as No. 1 is concerned, many people will argue that Walter Payton is the greatest football player of the Super Bowl era, period.
Though he played most of his career for mediocre Bears teams, and his first few seasons came in an era with only 14 regular-season games, Payton is still No. 2 on the NFL all-time rushing yardage list with 16,726. Only Emmitt Smith – who played 15 seasons, two more than Payton, mostly on excellent Dallas Cowboys teams – is ahead of the Bears legend at 18,355 yards.
Payton is also widely recognized for his skill as a blocker, receiving back and even as a passer (he threw for eight career TDs). And while he only had one NFL punt, those who saw him exhibit that skill contend he was an excellent punter. Analyst John Madden said Payton would have been an outstanding defensive back too.
Two Players We Question
Two questionable inclusions on the all-time list are Devin Hester and Jim McMahon.
Hester was a decent, not great, receiver. But his 19 return touchdowns (14 on punts, five on kickoffs with one score being for Atlanta) were demonstrations of his ability to strike fear in the opposition. Still, his overall impact hardly matches many other great Bears.
Quarterback McMahon was the beneficiary of playing on one of the greatest teams of all-time, the 1985 Bears. In seven seasons with Chicago, he had a gaudy regular-season won-loss record (46-15) as a starter and, of course, a rakish reputation. But he was named to the Pro Bowl just once in a 15-year career.
Chicago’s current starting quarterback, Justin Fields, has +2500 odds with Caesars sportsbook Illinois to win the MVP award in the 2023 season.
And Two We Suggest As Replacements
So, in challenge to the ChatGPT list of 10 all-time Bears, IllinoisBet suggests Bronko Nagurski and Mike Singletary. Perhaps customers at Chicago sportsbooks with longer memories might agree.
Nagurski is a charter member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a two-way star, mostly in the 1930s. He was named first-team All-Pro four times and helped the Bears to three NFL titles, once after returning from retirement.
Middle linebacker Singletary was a seven-time first-team All-Pro and two-time Defensive Player of the Year and, in 1985, he led what many consider the greatest defense in NFL history to a Super Bowl title.
A weakness in the ChatGPT analysis, at least in this case, is that while the AI app can impressively measure recorded metrics, it might have a blind spot for players where metrics are scant. Offensive linemen or players who played before statistics (or “data” in the modern vernacular) were widely recorded might be overlooked.
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