Last month, I did something I hadn’t done in many years. I went to Soldier Field and watched the Chicago Bears dismantle the Dallas Cowboys, in the stands, among the fans.
It was a bit surreal not to be in the press box, where I had watched nearly every home game since September 19, 2021, when Andy Dalton suffered a bone bruise and forced the early start of the Justin Fields era. Part of me missed having my computer in front of me to track stats and fire off tweets. Part of me missed having my notebook beside me to jot down questions, big plays, and other observations. A lot of me missed the birds-eye view of the field and having TVs on delay so I could more clearly see plays unfold. Was that Jonah Jackson who whiffed on a block or Drew Dalman? I was left to wonder.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that sitting in the crowd would give me new perspectives.
For one, football games are loud. Really, really loud. Louder than I remembered from my last Bears game, way back when. When Trevon Diggs slipped and Rome Odunze ran past him for an easy touchdown in the first quarter, the stadium was shaking. I half jokingly asked my dad, who took me to the game, if we should’ve brought earplugs with us.
You get a sense of the crowd’s energy from the press box, especially when fans pound on the floor below on key third downs, or when “Fire Nagy/Fire Flus/Fire Whoever” chants echo through a half-empty stadium late in the fourth quarter. But nothing in the press box ever came close to what I felt during that Odunze touchdown.
Watching the game from the stands also gave me the opportunity to speak with fans throughout the day. I got to hear Bears fans’ hopes and dreams, their fears and concerns. Unsurprisingly, it was a lot more of the latter– even with a lopsided victory– given the team’s recent history.
Here are the worries I heard the most, and my thoughts on each of them:
The offensive line still stinks despite all the investments
Without a doubt, the biggest need for the Bears over the offseason was to improve the offensive line. Caleb Williams was sacked a staggering 68 times last season, tied for third-most in NFL history, and just eight sacks off David Carr’s record when he was taken down 76 times in 2002. The run game was equally ineffective, with D’Andre Swift averaging just 3.8 yards per carry. Williams and Swift shared some of the blame for their respective shortcomings, but it all started up front.
So Ryan Poles addressed the unit in every way he could. He traded for two new guards in Joe Thuney and Jonah Jackson. He signed center Drew Dalman to a massive contract that made Dalman the highest-paid center in 2025 and gave him the fourth-most guaranteed money among centers, per Spotrac. Poles used the No. 56 overall pick in the draft to bring in Ozzy Trapilo to compete at tackle.
It was nearly a complete overhaul. Yet, the early returns have been a mixed bag.
On one hand, the pass protection has looked better, and Williams seems more confident because of it. Rather than bring his eyes down to scramble, we’ve seen Williams step up in the pocket to deliver accurate passes. Williams has only been sacked seven times this year, good for a 1.75 sacks per game rate. That’s a massive improvement from his four sacks per game rate from last season.
On the ground, however, the Bears have mainly been running in place. Through four games, Swift is averaging 3.3 yards per carry, down from his 3.8 YPC rate last season. But unlike last year, when Swift danced behind the line instead of hitting the hole, this year, Swift hasn’t had many holes to run through. According to PFF, Swift has averaged 2.2 yards after contact this year, which indicates defenders are first making contact with him just 1.1 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. For context, the RBs with the 10 best YPC rates this year (min. 25 carries) are being hit 1.7 yards past the line on average.
Add in false start and holding issues across the line, and you’ve got a unit that’s been up and down over the first quarter of the season. With three new starters in the middle, that’s not entirely unexpected, and the operation could improve as the year continues.
It will be interesting to see if Trapilo earns more playing time, and if that makes a noticeable difference. He didn’t seem overwhelmed when he was pressed into duty in Week 4 and was asked to block Maxx Crosby.
The defensive line still stinks despite all the investments
Matt Eberflus’ defense was predicated on generating disruption in the backfield with the front four, so that he could clog passing lanes with seven players. Other than the nine-game honeymoon period with Montez Sweat in 2023, he never got that requisite pressure with his defensive line.
Eberflus adjusted by dialing up more blitzes to both get after the quarterback and stop the run. It didn’t fix the problem, and the Bears finished 2024 ranked bottom-five in the league in both total rushing yards allowed and YPC allowed. Their 40 sacks ranked tied for 16th, right in the middle of the road.
Now it’s Dennis Allen running the defense, with more man coverage and a more aggressive mindset. We’ve seen blitzes and simulated blitzes in an effort to confuse opposing quarterbacks. We’ve also seen a shift in personnel to fit what Allen likes. The Bears shelled out for new defensive end Dayo Odeyingbo, seemingly based on a projection that he would thrive in Allen’s scheme, added veteran tackle Grady Jarrett to help plug holes in the middle, and used a second-round pick to draft Shemar Turner.
The hope was that the big changes up front would sure up the run defense, which would, in turn, put the team in more favorable pass rush situations with long third downs.
Instead, they’ve gone the other way.
In an admittedly small sample size of four games, the Bears have only notched five sacks, putting them on pace for a paltry 21 sacks on the year. Their whopping 6.1 YPC allowed ranks dead last in the league, and their 658 total rushing yards rank second-to-last, despite playing one fewer game than most of the league.
Odeyingbo and Jarrett have not created the havoc that the Bears hoped for– again in a small sample size. Turner has barely seen the field after he missed a big chunk of his rookie training camp due to an ankle injury. He’s dressed for just two of the team’s four games and has played 38 defensive snaps, total.
It’s been a troubling start for the unit that has been bailed out by a solid pass defense and timely takeaways.
Caleb Williams is not the guy, and the Bears will never get the guy
I understand fans who are so traumatized by Bears quarterback ineptitude that they will never believe in success at the position until they see it. To a lesser degree, I understand fans who wanted the Bears to trade away the No. 1 overall pick to build around Justin Fields. It’s fair to say Fields was never put in a position to thrive.
But nearly from Day 1 of Williams’ first training camp, I saw him make throws that I never saw from Fields. Williams was layering passes between safeties and linebackers. The ball came out of his hand more quickly. He seemed to go through his reads more quickly and confidently, too.
That’s not to say there haven’t been hiccups. When a rookie QB has to work with three different offensive coordinators in one season, things have obviously gone horribly wrong. There have been moments when the offense has been clunky and borderline non-operational. The first training camp under Ben Johnson was a struggle at the outset. It took Williams a while to get the team lined up on time and correctly positioned.
There have also been ugly interceptions and bad sacks. Moments where Williams inexplicably threw the ball in harm’s way, or ran out of bounds behind the line of scrimmage. He’s completed 62.3% of his passes, which is well behind the 70% clip Johnson wants by season’s end.
However, we’ve seen improvement and evidence that he can be the guy. His pocket presence is better, as mentioned earlier. He’s stepped up and thrown darts for big gains and clutch touchdowns. He’s honing in on deep ball accuracy and chemistry with his receivers.
After completing just 26.7% of his passes that travelled 20 yards or more in 2024, he’s completed 44.4% of those deep balls this year, per PFF.
Most importantly, he’s shown he can march the Bears down for a score when they need it. One of the biggest reasons the Bears decided to move on from Fields in 2022 was his performance in two-minute drills and fourth-quarter comeback scenarios.
This year alone, Williams and the Bears' offense are four for four on scoring drives at the end of the first half. Williams led a clutch comeback drive to beat the Raiders, and when the Bears were crumbling in Week 1 against the Vikings, he managed to put together a five-play, 65-yard touchdown drive that only took 51 seconds off the clock to give the team a chance to win. Of course, there was also the field goal drive to beat the Packers in Week 17 last year, as time expired. That gave the Bears their first win against the Pack since 2018 and their first win at Lambeau Field since 2015.
Some guys can dig deep and elevate their game in the biggest moments. You can call it “getting in the zone,” having “it,” or “moxie,” or “flipping a switch.” Whatever “it” is, Williams has shown flashes of “it.”
Williams is not a finished product. There’s a lot of unrealized potential, and there’s a chance he never fully blossoms into the quarterback the Bears expect him to be. But if he even gets close to his ceiling, Bears fans should have lots of excellent quarterback play to watch for years and years.
Ben Johnson is Matt Nagy all over again
After two ugly losses and a three-and-out to start Week 3, there were some groans that Johnson might not be the guru he was made out to be, or that he might be a great play designer but not a great CEO.
Nagy had razzle-dazzle and Club Dub, but clock management miscues and a lack of rhythm to his playcalling plagued him.
In Week 1 this year, a clock management issue hurt the Bears’ chances to beat the Vikings. With 2:02 left in the game, Johnson could’ve told Cairo Santos to kick the ball out of bounds to ensure no time ran off the clock. That would’ve essentially given the team an extra timeout for a potential comeback, since the two-minute warning would toll after the Vikings’ first offensive play.
Instead, Johnson asked Santos to kick the ball out of the end zone. That would’ve also kept the clock at 2:02, but would’ve given Minnesota the ball at their own 35-yard line instead of their own 40. Santos wasn’t able to boot the ball out of the back of the end zone, though, and the Vikings returned the ball to bring the clock under two minutes. It squandered the team’s chance to stop the clock an extra time, and the Bears got the ball back with just nine seconds to go.
The next week, Johnson said the move was “greedy.”
That admission, though, is just one example of why fans shouldn’t fear that Johnson is the next offensive genius who’s doomed to fail at Halas Hall.
Johnson has readily taken accountability for his mistakes in his short time as Bears head coach. That’s something we rarely heard from Nagy when the cracks began to show in his offense, and something we similarly rarely heard from Matt Eberflus.
Further, the accountability and intensity during Johnson’s first training camp were a stark difference from Nagy’s training camp in 2021, or any of Eberflus’ summer programs. Johnson shouted loudly at his players when things weren’t right. So did his assistant coaches. He didn’t appear to let mistakes slide, as if they were fixed in the film room. If the Bears didn’t get out of the huddle properly, he made them re-huddle. If a motion or shift were incorrect, he’d shut down the play and make the offense line up again. If players made mistakes multiple times in a row, he’d take them off the field and give someone else a chance to get it right.
Read more: Justin Fields' nightmare London game left Bears fans thankful for Caleb Williams
The Ben Johnson Era might not end with Super Bowls. We still don’t know whether he can turn the team into perennial contenders. But the process and the program both seem different enough this time around to be optimistic that things can change for the better.