Chicago Bears fans had hope that the 2025 season would be a turning point for the franchise. It's doubtful that fans expected the turnaround to happen quite this soon, however.
After the Bears' 11th win of the 2025 season and another step toward the team's first division title since 2018, it's clear that Ben Johnson has already changed the culture in Chicago. One such stat that indicates as much is how well the Bears have performed when trailing with just two minutes left in regulation.
According to ESPN Insights on X, "The Bears have six wins this season after trailing in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter." The account also notes that "This is the most such wins in a season since the 1970 merger."
Bears fans finally have proof this team is built different in big moments
This is the exact kind of stat one can point to when trying to explain to people why this Bears team is for real. Trailing in the final few minutes of a game doesn't faze them, and as we've seen, those types of teams tend to do quite well when the lights are brightest.
The latest instance of this came in Week 16, when the Bears were down by a touchdown with two minutes left against the Packers. It sure helped that Chicago's special teams came up clutch, recovering the onside kick, but from there, the offense marched down the field to tie the game up. And, as we saw, the Bears were able to walk off winners in overtime.
If the season ended right now, the Bears would be the winners of the NFC North and the two-seed in the NFC playoffs. That's a far cry from how fans thought this team would perform this year, and while there's still time for it to go south (let's hope not, though), the proof that these Chicago Bears are different from the ones we've watched in years past was on full display on Saturday night.
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Hopefully, that kind of late-game magic continues all the way to the Super Bowl.