Do I believe the 2025 Chicago Bears are going to be playing in the Super Bowl when this season comes to its inevitable conclusion in February? I do not. This roster has too many weak positions, and too many injuries at positions of strength. But through four games, look at what this team has provided. They opened with a same old, same old versus the Minnesota Vikings, a sharp primetime pin used to pop the balloon of optimism that had been inflated all summer long. They followed that with The Debacle in Detroit, a performance as vile as anything in that Faces of Death VHS I used to watch in Tommy Burns’s basement when I was 13. Then, almost out of the clear blue sky, the Bears returned home to deliver their best offensive performance in years and blow out the Dallas Cowboys. They were fun. I smiled. I’d almost forgotten the Bears could make me smile. One blocked field goal later, a season.

The Bears are pretty good. And fun. And interesting. These are all positives. They’re not winning a title, but winning titles cannot be the only measure of success in American sport, especially the NFL, a league wherein success is as much predicated upon the sturdiness of your best players’ ACLs as it is the accumulation of talent by your front office. The Bears are, what soccer supporters call, a mid-table side. But there’s joy to be found in the middle of the table. They’re not Liverpool or Arsenal or Manchester City; they are not a club that views a second-place finish as a disappointment. Right now, they are Crystal Palace, with a splash of Spurs, and maybe a drop of Fulham. In 2025, they’re going to lose to the top teams and beat the bottom ones. But that’s the roadmap to the postseason in the NFL and, along the way, they’re going to entertain us.

At the risk of resorting to cliches, fans need to stop missing the (Nottingham) forest for the (tricky) trees. The details, the bits and bobs that seems to drive social media content, are simply not that important right now. Cairo Santos doesn’t kick 60-yarders? Who cares? Cole Kmet has a bad afternoon? It’s fine. Bad call here, bad call there…look around, the league is littered with bad calls everywhere. The coach has shown real mettle through the first month. The quarterback is deserving of the armband. Some young, budding stars (Gervon Dexter, Rome Odunze) are off to flyers. Keep calm and carry on. Things are objectively pointing in the right direction.

The next seven games don’t look anywhere near as difficult as they looked in August. The Commanders, Ravens, and Bengals are banged up. The Giants have turned to a rookie quarterback. The Saints don’t have a quarterback. Will Aaron Rodgers still be upright come November? Are the Bears going to win all seven? Of course not. Mid-table sides don’t go on seven-game winning streaks, let alone nine. They’ll likely frustrate us all and lose a game they should win. Then they’ll turn around and thrill us by winning a game they should lose. The rest of ’em will come down to the fourth quarter. Is it likely the Bears are 6-5 or 5-6 when they head to Philadelphia on Black Friday? Absolutely.

That’s life in the middle of the table. And for the 2025 Chicago Bears, that’s just fine. Hell, it’s not only fine, it’s hope.

Older Chicago Bears fans are familiar with the team’s history regarding wide receivers. Outside of a select few gems over the years, it has been a long, torturous stretch of disappointment. This is one of the few organizations in the league that hasn’t put one in the Hall of Fame—their all-time leader in receiving yards retired when George Halas was still coaching. Plenty of attempts were made to find that superstar player. Willie Gault had speed but not much else. David Terrell was too inconsistent. Curtis Conway and Kevin White struggled with staying healthy. Imagine going from that long string of okay-to-bad and suddenly landing the next Larry Fitzgerald.

That is what former scout and top draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah believes happened. He spoke to Waddle & Silvy about the torrid start Rome Odunze is on. The Bears receiver has five touchdowns in four games, along with 296 yards. He’s on pace to put up numbers few players ever have for this franchise. The current record for single-season touchdown receptions is 13. Odunze is on pace for 21. Jeremiah admitted that he hasn’t seen a more complete receiver come out of college since Fitzgerald in 2004.

Odunze can carry the load like Larry Fitzgerald did.

What made the future Hall of Fame so difficult to deal with was that he had every tool in the toolbox: size, speed, hands, and route-running prowess. The only thing you can hold against Odunze at this stage is his inconsistent hands, and even that is improving. It got to a point where Larry Fitzgerald was so good that he almost single-handedly carried the Arizona Cardinals on their two deepest playoff runs in franchise history. He ranks second all-time in receiving yards behind only Jerry Rice, and did that without the benefit of playing the majority of his career with Hall of Fame quarterbacks.

It is apparent Odunze has significant chemistry with Caleb Williams. As that connection grows, the big plays will keep coming. If Jeremiah is correct, the landscape of the Bears’ offense is about to change for the next decade.

Finding success in the NFL isn’t just about hitting your high draft picks. That is obviously important, but the league is comprised of many players who come from more humble backgrounds. You’ll often find the best teams routinely find quality players on the undrafted market. The Chicago Bears were dead silent on that front for years. However, they appear to have found more success lately. Two of them came through big time on Sunday against the Raiders. Josh Blackwell got most of the fanfare for his blocked field goal to win the game.

Yet the biggest unsung hero was Theo Benedet. The former undrafted free agent from British Columbia was a forgotten name. Then he emerged as part of the left tackle competition late in training camp. Now he’s the team’s swing tackle and showcased why on Sunday. Former offensive lineman Brian Baldinger believes the Bears may have themselves a gem.

Just listen to the way head coach Ben Johnson talks about him.

It isn’t hard to see why the young tackle is rising up the ranks so fast. He has two qualities the Bears recognized immediately that made him valuable.

“(Benedet) is a really good run blocker first and foremost,” Johnson said. “I think it probably took him just a minute to settle in. It didn’t matter which side it was going to be on: right or left. I think he’s equally proficient at either one. He’s just had such a good spring and summer for us that I’ve got a lot of confidence there. There are just a few times there in pass protection that we got out of our balance just a little bit where we got a little top-heavy and our head was out in front of our rear end there. We got to clean that but, no, I really think he’s going to continue to learn.”

The Chicago Bears are willing to look past Benedet’s faults.

One of the biggest reasons teams were reluctant to buy into his length. His arms are only 31 or 32 inches long. That is extremely short for an NFL tackle. To overcome it, he’d have to be a great athlete with near-flawless fundamentals. To his credit, Benedet checks the first box and has made big strides in the second. He’s played 53 snaps across three games this season, allowing only two pressures on the quarterback. He has the nasty demeanor this coaching staff wants. With Braxton Jones struggling, it wouldn’t be surprising if the Bears just kept Benedet at left tackle moving forward. Much depends on how committed they are to getting Ozzy Trapilo on the field. We’ll know more after the bye week.

The Chicago Bears have insisted for months that the plan moving forward is to pay for the new Arlington Heights stadium themselves. That is true, for the most part. They will use various forms of private funding to build the complex. However, it’s never that simple with projects of this size. The organization was always going to need some form of public support to make things work. That has remained the sticking point between them and the Illinois state government, who seem dead set against any public support for this “vanity” project.

It’s something the Bears have been careful about bringing up because they know how sensitive the topic is. Unfortunately, they can’t avoid it much longer. Robert McCoppin of the Chicago Tribune has been on top of this situation since it began. He revealed new details from team sources, stating that the primary goal is to install new exit and entrance ramps to the highway near the property, while also adjusting the Metra Line nearby. Something of such scope will cost a lot of money.

We finally have a number.

Construction of a new Chicago Bears stadium in Arlington Heights would generate thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic activity, but would also require substantial taxpayer support for infrastructure, according to team projections released Tuesday.

Infrastructure such as entrance and exit ramps from near Route 53 and changes to the adjacent Metra train line would cost $855 million in public funds, the team’s consultant estimated in its report. The report attempts to assuage concerns about the price tag by pointing to gross state tax revenues of almost $1.3 billion over 40 years, according to projections from HR&A Advisors, Inc…

…The 60,000-seat stadium would hold an estimated 370 events a year, with most of those dates being private events and tours, according to the village report. However, there are plans for 10 home Bears games, two college football showcases, two high school football games, one international soccer match, wrestling and boxing events, and eight concerts each year, generating an estimated 1.5 million visitors combined. The team also hopes to occasionally host major events such as the NCAA Final Four, Big Ten championships and a Super Bowl.

The Chicago Bears still don’t have a solid commitment from Springfield.

They’ve remained hopeful that a deal is near. While an agreement is unlikely by next month, the expectation is that the state legislature will come around next spring. That is when team president Kevin Warren plans to have shovels in the ground. If all goes as planned, the new stadium is expected to be completed in time for the start of the 2030 season. Of course, nothing is ever simple with this state’s government. It is notorious for having some of the worst bureaucracy in the country. So much red tape must be crossed to get anything done. These are waters the McCaskey family has no idea how to navigate. It is why they hired Warren. Yet even he seemed unprepared for how challenging it has become.

That price tag isn’t likely to make things any easier as the next push comes a few months from now.

The Chicago Bears front office has weathered some massive storms in recent months. GM Ryan Poles is at the heart of it, taking heat for several questionable decisions that have kept the team in the NFC North basement. However, most agree that one of his best decisions was promoting Jeff King into the upper ranks of the front office. The former tight end has become one of Poles’ most trusted subordinates. He’s primarily credited for the push to sign Tyson Bagent as an undrafted free agent. Many outside the building see him as one of the team’s best talent evaluators.

There are hopes that he will continue gaining an increased voice in personnel decisions, especially with Ben Johnson now in charge. The two share a relationship going back to their college days. However, we all know the vultures never stop circling. Chicago’s front office has been pillaged for talent in the past. Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune warns the same could happen with King. There is an interesting wrinkle, though.

It wouldn’t be an NFL team doing the stealing. It would be a college program.

“If Jeff King has the desire to return to Blacksburg, Va., he likely would be a front-runner for the general manager job at Virginia Tech. The school hired Bruce Arians, a quarterback for the Hokies and assistant coach there in the mid-1970s, to assist in its search for a new coach. Arians said the first order of business is hiring a GM.”

Ryan Poles knows King has a deep history at Virginia Tech.

He played four years as a tight end for the program from 2002 through 2005. He was part of one of their better stretches in program history, reaching the Sugar Bowl in 2004 and winning the Gator Bowl in 2005 with an 11-2 record. The team has gone downhill in a big way in recent years. After posting a winning record every year between 1993 and 2017, they’ve had a losing record in five of the last seven seasons. Part of the problem has been an overall talent deficiency.

Between 2021 and 2022, they saw eight players get drafted. In the past three years, that number dropped to six. It feels like the well ran dry, which is why they’re hunting for a new GM. They need somebody who understands the new realities of the NIL era, which is basically college’s version of free agency. Grabbing someone from the NFL makes sense, and King has obvious school ties. Here is hoping Ryan Poles can convince him to stay.