After a long weekend that featured the full football slate, it is finally the Chicago Bears' turn to kickoff the 2025 season with a home date versus the Minnesota Vikings on Monday Night Football.
There is a newfound sense of excitement for the Bears heading into the 40th anniversary season of their last Super Bowl-winning team, but there is still concern amongst the Chicago faithful that this season will be yet another framed by incompetence, dysfunction, disappointment and ultimately, pain.
Still, the new football year brings new hope, and for the Bears to transact that optimism into actual wins, the team must accomplish the three following tasks to start the season off with a home victory versus the Vikings.
1) Keep it Simple for Caleb Williams
Fans are excited to finally witness the Bears' 2025 offense for one reason: the to witness the Bears' 2025 offense for one reason finally. New head coach Ben Johnson brings a new offensive scheme over from the Detroit Lions. The offensive line has a new interior with (from left to right) Joe Thuney, Drew Dalman, and Jonah Jackson, and the unit has added several new playmakers, including rookies Colston Loveland, Luther Burden III, and Kyle Monangai, as well as free agent acquisition Olamide Zaccheus.
With so many fresh faces in the huddle and on the sideline for second-year quarterback Caleb Williams to work with, it is perhaps more important than ever to keep the offense and play-calling relatively simple. This is not an advocacy for Williams to play Monday night with the training wheels on, rather a hope that Johnson and company set the youngster up for success by allowing him to make easy reads, simple throws, and, most importantly, quick decisions from the pocket.
There will undoubtedly be moments in this year's season opener that Williams will have to rely on his athleticism and instincts to escape pressure, extend plays, or try to (safely) force throws into incredibly tight windows. Still, the offensive philosophy should be to allow the man behind center to depend on the soundness of the scheme and the abilities of his teammates with the ball in their hands.
Williams can do and has done things on the football field, both in college and the pros, that other passers can only dream of, but making sure that the quarterback accomplishes the simple things will bode well for the team's success as a whole, both on Monday night and throughout the season as the schemes and play-calling get more nuanced and advanced.
2) Pressure the Vikings' Offensive Rookies
Quarterback J.J. McCarthy is not technically a rookie, although he effectively redshirted his rookie year due to a redshirt in last year's pre-season. Still, despite the trust that the NFL as a whole has placed in head coach Kevin O'Connell's ability to usher along young or tossed-aside quarterbacks, McCarthy remains perhaps the biggest unknown across the entire league entering the 2025 season.
McCarthy has yet to throw his first actual NFL pass, and even at the University of Michigan, where he led the Wolverines to a National Championship in 2023, he did not prove to be the dynamic passer that many eventual top 10 picks are. This is all to say that no one really knows what the Vikings' offense will look like with the La Grange Park, Illinois, and Nazareth Academy product behind center. The Bears' defense, led by new coordinator Dennis Allen, would do well to throw the kitchen sink at the young quarterback and see if they can make him uncomfortable and confused early and often.
The loaded Vikings' offense does have an actual rookie slated to start on Monday in left guard Donovan Jackson, who played a variety of positions across the line of McCarthy's collegiate rival, the Ohio State University. He is fortunate to now play inside of Christian Darrisaw, one of the league's most athletic left tackles, and next to recently signed center Will Fries, who has 31 starts under his belt, all with the Indianapolis Colts.
Jackson will likely face some combination of Gervon Dexter Sr., Grady Jarrett, and Andrew Billings lined up across from him. As the rookie eases into his first taste of NFL play, the Bears might find their most successful defensive pressures and blitz attempts in the A- and B-gaps on Jackson's side of the line.
3) Avoid Costly Mistakes in the Kicking Game
No matter how talented your team is on paper heading into the season, the margin of error in week one can be razor thin. Offenses and defenses have not added the wrinkles to their gameplans that make their units uniquely designed, and there will certainly be a handful of procedural errors that, while good teams will be better at avoiding, are somewhat inevitable.
The one places where such errors can be most costly is on special teams. Missed field goals can be the difference in what may be a close game, fumbles in the return game can set the opposition up with short fields and holding penalties on returns can set your own offense up with longer fields to score. On the other hand, good special teams plays result in more scoring drives, better starting field position and situations in which the opposing offense is forced to drive the entire length of the field.
If the Bears want to start the season off on the right foot, avoiding such costly mistakes will be crucial. This franchise at one point boasted one of the better special teams units in league history, headlined by Hall of Fame returner Devin Hester and one of the league's most efficient placekickers in Robbie Gould.
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Since that bygone era, the Bears have struggled to find consistent playmakers who have, by and large, avoided those above costly special teams errors. The Bears' special teams unit can greatly benefit the team's offense and defense by flipping that recent trend on its head and finishing Monday night's game error-free.