Windy City Gridiron
It’s tough to narrow down my favorite Bears team of all time down to only one. Though they haven’t won the Super Bowl since I’ve been alive — and have only appeared in one when I was five years old — there have been a handful of entertaining teams that have been extremely fun to watch.
There’s the 2018 team that won the NFC North on the wings of the best defense in the NFL. The addition of Khalil Mack to a group that already had players like Akiem Hicks, Kyle Fuller, and Eddie Jackson brought that unit to a supercharged state that was unrivaled by any other team in the league at the time; their PFN Defense Impact ranking of No. 1 in the league backs me up on this. Even though that season ended in the Double Doink, the vibes were high throughout the whole year, and the games were incredibly fun.
Of course, you also have last year’s Bears team. After years of coaching incompetence and subpar quarterback play, watching Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams formulate a competent and efficient offense was such a relief to fans in Chicagoland and around the world. Watching young players like Colston Loveland and Luther Burden III grow throughout the course of the year was so much fun, and as inconsistent as the defense was, their ability to generate turnovers made for some exciting football.
In the end, though, I’m going with the 2006 Bears team that won the NFC. I’m fully aware that I was five years old when they were playing, and naturally, I knew next to nothing about the schematics of football. I wasn’t able to understand much of I was seeing in a way that I can now.
But to me, that’s part of the magic. I didn’t have an ounce of cynicism in me. When Chicago lost games, or whenever someone would make a bad play, I wasn’t mad at the players. I wasn’t mad at the coaches. I was disappointed purely because I wanted to see the Bears win. To me, those players were titans. Every move they made had me awestruck. Because of my youth, I was able to experience that dominant football team with a sense of wonder that I never will be able to again.
The 2006 Bears team is the team that made me fall in love with football. It was the first year I watched every single game, and I instantly fell in love with the sport through that talented team.
Obviously, you have to start with the defense. Brian Urlacher was at his peak, playing at an All-Pro level and cementing himself as one of the greatest linebackers of the 21st century. Lance Briggs was right alongside him, forming the best off-ball linebacker tandem of the decade. Tommie Harris was the Pro Bowl 3-technique that made Lovie Smith’s defense click. Alex Brown and Adewale Ogunleye held it down on the edge, while Mark Anderson came out of nowhere as...
