Have you heard about the Chicago Bears lately? It’s seemingly all anyone is talking about in the lead-up to the 2025-26 NFL season. A 38-0 preseason beatdown of the Buffalo Bills has skyrocketed anticipation to see the Bears when games matter, and even the most cynical of football analysts are starting to buy into the hype.
Obviously this was a massive offseason for Chicago. Every player move (and there were some good ones) is utterly inconsequential in comparison to landing Ben Johnson as head coach. The most coveted name in the hiring cycle, Johnson’s offensive magic in Detroit turned the ho-hum Lions into a legitimate contender. His creative play calling, personnel usage, and stellar tutelage transformed veteran players like Jared Goff and David Montgomery into world beaters, while his system helped develop Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jahmyr Gibbs, and Sam LaPorta into three of the best players at their respective position.
Naturally this transformation with the Lions has everyone now looking at the Bears. If Johnson can work his magic inside that organization, they why couldn’t he do the same in Chicago? Especially considering he was inheriting a former No. 1 pick at QB in Caleb Williams, solid receivers led by D.J. Moore, and another promising weapon in Rome Odunze.
It seems the sky is the limit for the Bears, but is it time to buy in completely on 2025 dominance, or pump the brakes on the hype train?
Three reasons the Bears hype is real
1. Caleb Williams is buying in
The second year QB went viral for all the wrong reasons at the start of training camp when video emerged of him missing the passing net all together and being frustrated with himself. This was followed by one of the ugliest interceptions of training camp and merged to become a big bucket of water thrown on the fire.
How quickly things change.
In his lone start this preseason Williams went 6-for-10, 107 yards and 1 TD. Perhaps more notably he has no rushing yards, which in this case is a very good thing. One of the defining negative characteristics of Williams’ rookie season were his happy feet. Real pressure flushed him out of the pocket too often, and that gave way to responding to perceived pressure, rather than standing tall in the pocket and delivering. This, coupled with the rookie’s natural propensity to be a playmaker often led to easy yards being left on the table, as he tried to deliver a home run play.
This was the big question with Williams and Johnson teaming up as a QB and coach. Here we had a potential superstar QB who thrives out of structure, and a coach who demands absolute adherence to structure. It felt like a duo that could either thrive, or explode as they butted heads.
As it stands it really seems like Johnson has begun to mold Williams into his kind of quarterback. That Bills preseason game is a small sample size, but he was more poised in the pocket, had more command of the field, and still showed flashes of his individual playmaking ability.
If these two are able to marry Johnson’s phenomenal scheme work with Williams’ ability to improvise when a play blows up then something very special is brewing.
2. Colston Loveland is shaping up to be an offense-defining pick
One of the most exciting elements of the Bears offense in 2025 is seeing what Johnson can do with his 1st round pick. Loveland is a receiver-first tight end with the skills as a pass catcher to become a major weapon in the offense. I’ve seen comparisons to Sam LaPorta, but I think Loveland’s high-end potential is much closer to someone like Greg Olsen, who the Bears really didn’t have the structure around to use correctly when they selected him in 2007.
Johnson will be able to unlock Loveland and turn him into a monster. He’s a tight end who can operate as a big receiver in trips packages, with enough toughness to catch the ball over the middle. If he can quickly develop a rapport with Caleb Williams then the sky is the limit.
3. The defense looks much, much better
Chicago’s defense was severely overlooked in 2024, largely because so much focus was on the offense where the team struggled. The team allowed a better-than-average 21.8 points per game last season, but really struggled against the run where they ranked 28th in yards allowed.
The defense looks much more organized thus far, both at the point of attack and through its linebackers. There’s just a level of discipline that the front has now that they lacked a year ago, with the second level doing a far better job collapsing on run lanes and stopping big plays before they develop. If we pair this with the Bears’ already stellar pass defense — this team could be on to something.
One player really worth watching on the defensive side is Austin Booker. The second year DE didn’t get a lot of reps in his first season, but has been an absolute monster in Chicago’s two preseason games, registering a total of 4.0 sacks. Booker figures to be a rotational pass rusher, but depth is something this team has been sorely lacking on the defensive line. Booker was injured at the end of the Bills game, but the severity of the injury isn’t yet known.
If Booker can continue to be a valuable rotational rusher then it bodes very well for the future.
Three reasons you shouldn’t buy into the Bears hype
1. We’re really going to hype preseason like this?
I can’t believe we still need to have this discussion, but it’s friggin’ preseason. This is a time where the games don’t matter, and more importantly: Every team has different goals. Some organizations are use preseason as coordinated propaganda to hype up a fanbase after a disappointing season, while others with established rosters are using the reps as a chance to weed out the final five or six guys who might make their roster.
The shared DNA of both the Dolphins and Bills game is that neither opponent really cared about the game itself. Tua Tagovailoa only threw six passes, Tyreek Hill didn’t play, and Devon Achane carried the ball three times in the first game. Miami still managed to tie things up without using a single creative play stashed away in Mike McDaniel’s hat.
Meanwhile the Bills didn’t play a single one of their starters, and used third stringers to start the game at several crucial positions. It’s nice to run up the score on a team of the Bills’ caliber, but it’s a little like sucker punching someone in their sleep and later claiming you beat them in a fight.
We’ve fallen for this time, and time again. There’s always a team that looks incredible in preseason and then completely collapses when the games matter. Hell, last year the Titans went 3-0 with wins over the 49ers, Seahawks, and Saints. Perhaps we can pump the brakes a little.
There’s been so much focus on Caleb Williams that people have seemingly forgotten there’s another whole element of offense to think about. As it stands the Bears have D’Andre Swift as their starter, and absolutely nothing of note behind him.
It’s entirely possible the Bears’ offense will be one dimensional until they find a proper long-term running back, and that means it’s go-time for opposing pass rushers who feel like they can tee off on Williams without much reprisal. Williams can avoid a lot of that rush with his athleticism, but the worrying part is that the Bears simply aren’t built like a modern NFL offense at this point.
The hallmarks of this offensive era is having a bruising offensive line and either one superstar back, or a true two-deep stable. The OL will be better in Chicago this year, but they don’t have the backs to get this done. Swift is a fine Band-Aid for the problem, but that doesn’t mean we should hold the Bears up as a playoff team yet.
3. We have no idea if this team can handle adversity
The mettle of a team is revealed when things get tough. Right now there’s no way to predict how a young team, with a 1st year head coach will be able to handle the choppy waters the season will inevitably bring. On a macro level that comes through injuries and poor performance, but even in game there’s a huge element of mental toughness needed to make the play to turn a game around when things aren’t going to plan.
Can the Bears do that? I’m not sure even they know. Is Caleb Williams equipped to handle the pressure of a two-minute drive with the game on the line the same way that Jared Goff was able to in Detroit? Perhaps, but it’s also very early in his career to expect this from him. What happens when Johnson calls a play on a critical down and Caleb sees something he needs to audible to?
There are just too many factors at play to expect this team to be able to compete right now. They’re set up for the future, but until then this is just more misguided hope without the Bears having really earned it.
