There aren't many in the national sports media who have a ton of belief that the Chicago Bears will have a successful season in 2025.
The talk has been that the Bears will improve from their 5-12 season last year, but it's been mostly seven to nine wins being given to the team. The playoffs have not been a topic of discussion for Chicago this season, until now.
ESPN NFL writer Bill Barnwell made his playoff predictions on who would be the 14 teams representing in the postseason. Barnwell did the unthinkable and had the Bears squeak in the playoffs.
"The Cowboys were going to be a wild-card team in the initial draft of these rankings, but after the Micah Parsons trade, they dropped out. And that opened a spot for the Bears. Like San Francisco and Jacksonville, Chicago is on this year's likely-to-improve list. Unlike the 49ers and the Jaguars, though, its quantitative case isn't quite as strong. The Bears were 3-7 in one-score games, which isn't ideal, but they weren't the most injured team, didn't play the toughest schedule in the league and weren't subject to many once-in-an-NFL-lifetime statistics.
What I think they did do, though, is make a major coaching upgrade by going from Matt Eberflus and Thomas Brown to Ben Johnson. If that turns out to be the case and Johnson unlocks the best from Caleb Williams in the process, Chicago might have significantly improved performance from the two most important positions in football. I'm not sure there's enough in the tank to get the Bears past the Lions and Packers, but with the Cowboys nobly sacrificing their best defensive player two weeks before the start of the season, I'm willing to believe the Bears sneak in as a wild card in 2025."
Can the Bears make the playoffs in the 2025 season?
There's a lot to get excited about with the Bears. New head coach Ben Johnson has done great work with general manager Ryan Poles to build a strong roster, including three new interior starting offensive linemen, two new starting defensive linemen, and four rookies from the first two rounds of the draft that could have a drastic impact on the future of the franchise.
Quarterback Caleb Williams has been developing nicely since working closely with Johnson. All those issues he had with holding on to the ball too long and overall decision-making seemed to have decreased in the preseason.
The most significant aspect of the improvements has come from the culture Johnson has built. Helped by his coaching staff, headlined by defensive coordinator Dennis Allen, the Bears are more disciplined than they were over the last three years under the Matt Eberflus era.
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Bears fans would love to see their team in the postseason, but everyone is holding back their excitement after getting burned with the same feeling entering last season.