Windy City Gridiron
With a quarter of the 21st century of Bears football behind us, we look at the best players to suit up for them on offense.
The 2025-26 NFL season marks the 25th season of the 21st century, and it also means we’ve sat through a quarter century of Chicago Bears football since the turn of the millennium.
It’s been an up-and-down quarter century, for the Bears, ranging from the highs of their NFC championship in 2006 to the lows under the likes of Marc Trestman and Matt Eberflus. The hope is the next 25 years will be more steadily strong, but there have been plenty of fantastic players to suit up for the Bears over the years.
To look back on the best Bears players of the 21st century, I put together a full team of the best players at each position to suit up for the organization since 2001. Today, we’ll start with the offense.
This is probably the easiest choice of all the positions for this Bears all-quarter century team. As of this writing, Jay Cutler is the only quarterback with more than four seasons as the team’s starter.
It’s not a high bar to reach, but Cutler was still a solid starter during his time with the Bears. Though interceptions held him back from ever being in conversation as the league’s elite, he holds the team’s all-time records in passing yards, passing touchdowns and quarterback wins.
If Cutler wasn’t the easiest choice, Matt Forte as the team’s running back sure is. He has far and away the most rushing yards for a Bears player in the 21st century so far, he leads in receptions, and he’s second in receiving yards.
Forte surpassed the 1,000-yard rushing mark in five of his eight seasons with the Bears, and he didn’t have fewer than 890 rushing yards in a single season. He held the record for receptions by a running back in a season for nearly a decade, and he was a two-time Pro Bowler. In a franchise deep with legendary running backs, Forte belongs near the top.
Despite playing for the Bears for just three seasons, a strong argument could be made that Brandon Marshall is the best wide receiver in team history. He was a Pro Bowler in two of those seasons and a first-team All-Pro in one. His 2012 campaign saw him break franchise records with 118 catches and 1,508 yards.
In five seasons with the Bears, Alshon Jeffery had 304 catches for 4,549 receiving yards and 26 touchdowns. He was a Pro Bowler in 2013 after tallying 1,421 receiving yards in just his second year in the league. He had two 1,000-yard seasons, but he was well on pace to also reach that mark in his injury-shortened 2015 and 2016 years.
I considered Marty Booker in the third spot, as he also had two 1,000-yard...
