On her latest Making Monsters podcast, Taylor Doll is joined by Jeremy Reisman, who is on the Detroit Lions beat for SB Nation’s Pride Of Detroit, to help preview the week 18 matchup between the Lions and our Chicago Bears.

Taylor and Jeremy chat about the paths of both teams this year, the Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams relationship, what it means for Caleb to hit 4,000 passing yards, and other storylines from this season.

Jeremy also discusses Detroit’s lack of identity on defense.

“For the past few years, it’s been the run defense. They’ve been a really good run...

Note: We have a special edition this week! Since Week 18 is a fairly new things I’ve expanded our dive back into history to include games that took place around the same date as our Week 18 game will take place this year, as well as including some Week 17 games. Enjoy!

1.) 2001 Bears @ Jaguars: Defense dominates, Keith Traylor rumbles in regular season finale

The 2001 season had a lot of watershed moments, but maybe one of the more memorable moments came in the regular season finale when the 12-3 Bears hit the road to end the...

After a week’s hiatus for the holidays, the Reacts results have returned, and Chicago Bears fans are still overwhelmingly confident the franchise is headed in the right direction. Following the December 20 win over the Green Bay Packers, our results hit a season high 98%, and last week’s loss in San Francisco barely dented our faith, as it fell to just 97%.

When the Bears were (0-2), our fans’ confidence in the franchise was a season low 23%, but it has been over 92% each week since the Bears beat the Cincinnati Bengals.

Here’s how our confidence results were each...

These two franchises have been playing each other since 1930; only back then, it was the Chicago Bears vs the Portsmouth Spartans. The Bears lost that first matchup, and they’ve lost the last three against the Detroit Lions, but Chicago holds a (105-81-5) all-time record in the series.

For Week 18, there’s not quite as much drama surrounding this game as the NFL hoped when making the schedule, because only the Bears held up their end of the deal by being (11-5). The Lions (8-8) have lost three straight and have been eliminated from postseason contention.

There’s still Ben Johnson...

Finishing off the regular season with the division rival Detroit Lions is a testament to how much an NFL season changes from the beginning to end.

It’s a demonstration of how teams evolve, get better, or alternatively, get worse, get injured or suffer from bad luck.

Think back to when these two teams met in week two, in September. The Bears were 0-1 and blew a late lead in a primetime game. The Lions were 0-1 and still considered the favorites for the NFC North division.

And after the Lions blew the doors off the Bears in a 52-21 clowning...

For all the key additions the Chicago Bears have made last offseason, from Nahshon Wright down to rookies like Colston Loveland and Luther Burden III, Jone Thuney might well be the most important player the franchise added to its ranks this year.

After years of question marks along the offensive line, new stalwarts Thuney, Drew Dalman and Jonah Jackson led a revival of the team’s performance up front, paving the way for a run game that has ground opponents into the turf and given second-year quarterback Caleb Williams protection he could only have dreamt of last season.

But few have...

The final injury report of the regular season is out for the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions, and all things considered, neither looks too bad for this time of the season.

The good news for Chicago is that wide receiver Rome Odunze (foot) got his first practice in on Friday, albeit limited, and is listed as questionable. This is his first work in a few weeks, and it feels like more of a ramp-up to be ready for the playoffs than it does him playing on Sunday.

More good news for Odunze is that he says offseason surgery isn’t something...

The Chicago Bears are into the playoffs with a winning record for the first time since 2018. Bears head coach Ben Johnson has made it clear, heading into the final game of the regular season (against his former team and divisional opponent Detroit), that Chicago intends to play to win the game. However, not everyone agrees with the idea of playing all of the starters and exposing key players to injury heading into the playoffs. With that in mind, we gathered the opinions of several contributors on two key questions.

***First, do you want the Bears to rest starters against...

Modern football is all about big plays and as a companion piece to the STEP Differential, I’m tracking the Bears big plays all year in this Infogram:

Remember that you can click into the tabs on the lower left to see the tally by player and you can hover over any of the shapes on the right hand side of the visual to see a description of each play. Like last year, I’ll color code the plays on the right with the team color of the opponent. New this year I’ve added a timestamp this year to each play. Someone...

The Chicago Bears definitely have something to play for on Sunday against the Detroit Lions. A win locks them into the two seed, but a loss, coupled with a win by the Philadelphia Eagles, means the Eagles are two and the Bears drop to the three seed.

Detroit has a lengthy injury list, and they’ll probably have a few backups filling in.

Philly has announced they’ll sit several starters for their game against the Washington Commanders, while Washington also has several players likely to sit out due to injury.

With the Bears and the Eagles both kicking off at 3:25,...

THE DAILY SPONGIE SPECIAL

BEARSSSSSS

**Bears injury report: WR Rome Odunze remains out, Lions vets improve – Chicago Sun Times **Odunze has a chronic foot issue.

**Bears’ Luther Burden: Practices in full Thursday – CBS Sports **Burden was limited in Wednesday’s practice due to the quad injury he suffered on the last play of Chicago’s loss to San Francisco in Week 17, and it now appears he’s fully recovered in time for Sunday’s regular-season finale against the Lions.

**For Bears’ rookies, ‘whenever our name’s called, age doesn’t matter’ – Chicago Sun Times **Four Bears rookies are regular contributors to an...

The final week of the NFL regular season and the Chicago Bears are playing for playoff seeding.

This seemed impossible one year ago, when they limped into week 18 against the Green Bay Packers on a 10-game losing streak.

But that upset left a good taste in fans’ mouths. Caleb Williams said, “And there’s a lot more coming.” He wasn’t wrong.

The calendar year 2025 was good to the Bears, and now it’s about continuing that momentum into 2026.

Chicago won 14 games under Matt Eberflus, 15 if you throw Thomas Brown’s interim tenure on there. Ben Johnson has a...