The Chicago Bears are the #1 offense in the NFL, at least in terms of total yards. The Buffalo Bills are the highest-scoring. Does that make them the most feared, though? That depends on who you ask. Buffalo does have Josh Allen, who is currently the league’s best quarterback. However, it seems more people are talking about the Bears lately. Why is that? It might be because it remains almost impossible to stop despite losing their budding star quarterback, Caleb Williams, to a hamstring injury two weeks ago.
It hasn’t come into focus for some why the Bears are that offense nobody wants to play. Sure, the massive amounts of yards are part of it. They’re still top 10 in points scored as well. However, it wasn’t until analytics laid out in stark detail what it means to play them that it sank in.
It’s not just that the Bears can move the ball on you. It is that they move the ball at an agonizingly slow pace, then consistently score at the end. No team is better at holding the ball for a long time and putting up points at the end.
The Chicago Bears embody the identity Ben Johnson set for them.
Multiple players have said it for some time now. The head coach doesn’t just want to score points on the opposition. He wants to squeeze the life out of them. He wants to make them quit. There is no more proven way to do that than by possessing the ball for 10/11/12 players per drive, eating up half of a quarter, and putting a touchdown on the board at the end. It is so demoralizing when that happens. Many times over the years, you’ve seen teams get their spirit broken from moments like that.
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There are reasons to believe in this style of offense. It tends to create success for the entire team. Since 2000, there have been 14 instances in which an NFL team ranked #1 in time of possession and in the top 10 in scoring. Thirteen made the playoffs. Five reached at least the conference championship game, and two reached the Super Bowl, with the 2017 Eagles claiming a Lombardi trophy.
| Season | Team | Scoring Rank | Points Per Game | Playoff Finish / Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Pittsburgh Steelers | #6 | 24.4 PPG | Lost Divisional Round |
| 2003 | Denver Broncos | #7 | 23.8 PPG | Lost Wild Card Round |
| 2005 | Denver Broncos | #7 | 24.7 PPG | Lost AFC Championship |
| 2007 | Pittsburgh Steelers | #9 | 24.6 PPG | Lost Wild Card Round |
| 2009 | Green Bay Packers | #3 | 28.8 PPG | Lost Wild Card Round |
| 2010 | Oakland Raiders | #6 | 25.6 PPG | Missed the Playoffs |
| 2012 | Houston Texans | #8 | 26.0 PPG | Lost Divisional Round |
| 2014 | Pittsburgh Steelers | #7 | 27.2 PPG | Lost Wild Card Round |
| 2015 | Carolina Panthers | #1 | 31.3 PPG | Lost Super Bowl 50 |
| 2017 | Philadelphia Eagles | #3 | 28.6 PPG | Won Super Bowl LII |
| 2019 | Baltimore Ravens | #1 | 33.2 PPG | Lost Divisional Round |
| 2020 | Green Bay Packers | #1 | 31.8 PPG | Lost NFC Championship |
| 2021 | Green Bay Packers | #10 | 26.5 PPG | Lost Divisional Round |
| 2025 | Buffalo Bills | #3 | 28.3 PPG | Lost Conference Championship |
The Bears have a winning formula.
Nobody disputes that NFL players are tough. However, like anybody else, they can be mentally broken. All it takes is wearing them down to a state of physical exhaustion, then hitting them with a gut punch at the end. That is what those long drives. It’s the Muhammad Ali strategy. Dance around the opponent, grab and clinch them to eat away at their stamina, and when they’re dead on their feet, throw that right hook. If it worked for the champ, there is no reason the same mentality can’t work on the football field.
This is why Johnson went against the grain when building his offensive philosophy. Most offensive coaches these days are all about the quarterbacks. Build everything around them. The Chicago Bears head coach felt that wasn’t the way to go. Unless you had Tom Brady or Drew Brees, it is impossible to conduct a death-by-a-thousand-cuts offense. For that, you must run the ball. No team in the NFL is better at it than the Bears, and it’s creating an aura of fear for their opponents.
