The Chicago Bears were the story of the 2025 season. After almost a decade of irrelevance, capped by arguably the worst three-year stretch of football in franchise history from 2022 through 2024, the team found magic in a bottle. New head coach Ben Johnson put together their first top 10 offense since 2013. Quarterback Caleb Williams led six 4th quarter comebacks in the regular season. The defense led the NFL in takeaways. All of it culminated in an 11-6 record and an NFC North championship.
Having come an overtime away from the NFC Championship, many wonder if the Bears can build on this success. They showed they could hang with the best in the conference. Now all they have to do is clean some things up, and they could be knocking on the door of a Super Bowl. However, people who cover the league aren’t hearing much belief for Chicago. Dan Graziano of ESPN reported as much in his latest column, confirming the widespread belief that they’ll take a step back this season.
The Chicago Bears will miss the postseason…
…In the long term, the arrow is definitely pointing up for the Johnson/Williams pairing — and there’s room for Williams to get even better. He finished 32nd out of 33 qualifying QBs in completion percentage (58.1%) last season and just 16th in QBR (58.2) even as he led the Bears to their first division title in seven years.
But … the Bears have the hardest schedule in the NFL, based on the 2025 win/loss records of the teams they’ll play in 2026. And while that is certainly not the only indicator of schedule strength, history says it’s definitely not nothing.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
The last team to win a playoff game after entering the season with the hardest schedule by that metric was the 2016 Falcons. Over the past 10 seasons, seven of those teams missed the playoffs entirely.
Plus, the Bears won an NFC North division in which literally every other team had a winning record last season. The Lions and Vikings should bounce back to contender status, and the Packers were a playoff team last season along with the Bears. Chicago plays all three of those teams — plus the Bills — over the final month of the season.
The Bears don’t have many believers.
It isn’t a total surprise. When you need seven 4th quarter comebacks to reach the divisional round of the playoffs, everybody knows that kind of football is unsustainable. The Bears must prove they can actually win games the normal way, which didn’t show up enough in 2025. There are also the losses they took on the roster. D.J. Moore was traded. Drew Dalman retired. Ozzy Trapilo tore up his knee. Kevin Byard, Jaquan Brisker, and C.J. Gardner-Johnson all departed as free agents. Several key names who fueled that playoff run are gone.
Throw in a schedule against nine playoff teams from last season, and you start to understand the pessimism. However, some factors feel overlooked. For one, the Bears accomplished all of that with a pretty banged-up roster. Several key starters missed large chunks of the season, including most of their cornerback room. It is reasonable to assume they’ll have better luck in that area this year. You’ll also have Williams entering his second year in Johnson’s offense, which should lead to much greater efficiency.
🔥 Subscribe to the Untold Chicago YouTube channel to hear Chicago legends tell stories you’ve never seen in headlines — real moments, real experiences, straight from the athletes themselves.
Last but not least, the Bears have one of the shortest travel schedules in the league. They won’t have to worry much about jet lag and extensive road fatigue.
They aren’t intimidated by this challenge.
Coach Johnson has made the standard clear. He expects this team to carry itself like a champion. That means believing that you can beat every opponent you line up against. For the most part, the Chicago Bears lived up to that last year. Of their six losses last season, only two were by more than seven points. It’s not like they were constantly getting clobbered whenever they ran into other good teams. They almost always played them tough. This is not a team that hopes to win.
They expect to. Sometimes, that is the only difference you need. It is impossible to tell what the future holds each year. Crazy stuff can happen. What we know for certain is the Bears will arrive at this season with zero illusions. Johnson has made it clear to them for months that last season means nothing. They are basically starting over from scratch now. It is up to everybody to put in the work necessary to take the next step. Players have bought in, and that is half the battle.
