When talking about the 2025 Chicago Bears season, it's hard for fans not to have a smile on their faces.
The Bears won the NFC North with an 11-6 record, beat the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Wild Card game, and won their first playoff game in over 10 years. Bears head coach Ben Johnson, while appreciative of the compliments of last season, is really ready to move on from it.
"It's been a long offseson in terms of you go downtown or you go somewhere, and everyone's patting you on the back and telling you what a great, great job you did," Johnson said via CHGO's Adam Jahns. "You don't want to hear it. You don't want to hear it anymore, alright. It was great for the first week, but now our sights are turned. And we got a monumental task at hand, because this division only got better so far this offseason, and we still have the draft to come. So out guys, we got to go back to work just like we did a year ago. It doesn't get any easier. It's going to continue to get harder. They're going to feel that pressure from the coaching staff so that when we get to these games in the fall that we're going to be ready for it."
Ben Johnson is ready to move on from 2025
This is just another example of how Johnson is creating a whole new culture in Chicago. While he focuses mostly on the players, here is a situation where he's getting honest with the fan base and doesn't want to talk about the season anymore.
Johnson has had his fair share of heartbreak in the postseason over the years as both a Bears head coach and a Detroit Lions offensive coordinator. It's now three straight seasons in which he's reached the NFC Divisional Round, and he's only won it once in that span.
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The 2025 season will have its memorable moments, but, to Johnson's credit, he is instilling a mindset in which the standard is now that the Super Bowl is a disappointment. Chicago has needed a coach with that kind of mindset for a very long time.