Windy City Gridiron
Optimism reigns supreme for all 32 teams as the 2025 NFL regular season kicks off this week, starting on Thursday night. For the Chicago Bears, there’s plenty to be excited about. First-year head coach Ben Johnson has been considered a top candidate for years due to his offensive mind, and he brings a diverse and talented coaching staff with him. Additionally, Chicago was one of the more active participants during the acquisition period. Although it’s key to never mistake activity for achievement, it’s easy to see how this roster is vastly improved. Coupled with a better coaching staff, there are plenty of reasons to expect this team to take a big step forward in 2025.
Can the Bears break their five-year playoff drought in one of the toughest divisions in football? We’ll dive into these questions and much more on a pre-Week 1 edition of 10 Bears Takes.
1. Establishing “fair” yet firm expectations for 2025.
Rewinding to Johnson’s opening press conference in late January, something he said stood out. Despite taking over a team that won five games in 2024 and plenty of questions all over the roster, the first-year head coach came in with a “win now” attitude and said as much throughout his first media availability session.
While it’s fair to say that the objective of any sport is to win, we’ve seen plenty of newly hired head coaches shy away from early expectations. Not Ben Johnson. His message has been clear since Day 1, and more importantly, he has not wavered from that. Even so, it’s fair to wonder what the ceiling is for a team that has won a combined 15 games over its previous three seasons. Some view being “realistic” as setting obtainable goals that show progression (ie, a seven, maybe eight-win season), while others recognize how quickly a team’s fortunes can turn around over the course of a 17-game stretch.
Far too often, I’ve gone into a season with what I’ve felt were realistic expectations, just to be slapped in the face by a much harsher reality by the middle of October. There’s nothing more embarrassing than projecting a winning season, just to see them end up with another Top 10 pick. Similar to the Bears’ quarterback failures of the past, any objective fan will always look to adjust their process for setting realistic expectations for the upcoming season. I’m no different.
One of the mistakes I’ve learned from is not ignoring warning signs early in the process. For example, heading into 2019, I should have been more cognizant of Mitchell Trubisky’s regression at the tail end of the regular season and the first three quarters of their playoff loss to the Eagles. Coupled with his continuous lack of sustained progress throughout training camp in 2019, there were plenty of signs that things simply weren’t clicking the way many of us had hoped at the time. More recently, 2024 was another lesson in not living in the moment. I knew (without a shadow...
