Almost everybody of note made it through Chicago Bears training camp in attendance, with one notable exception. Jaylon Johnson, their star cornerback, did not suit up for a single practice. It was unheard of for somebody like him, who was always praised for his unrivaled work ethic. Head coach Ben Johnson only stated it was an injury that was suffered while the corner was working out ahead of camp. Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune later revealed it was a soft tissue injury. Other than that, fans were in the dark about when he’d return.

Johnson finally answered the first part of the puzzle on Tuesday.

“As far as the injury, same movement I’ve made plenty of times, and had a pretty bad, bad injury in my groin.”

That certainly explains a lot. Groin injuries are bad in general. For cornerbacks and other skill players, where running is central to their effectiveness, they can be crippling. From the way Johnson describes it, the setback was severe. If they’re bad enough, such injuries can take a long time to heal. As to whether he can be ready for Monday night against Minnesota, he sounded optimistic that he could make it in time.

“I’m doing everything I can to play. I know I had a good workout this morning, so I’m feeling good, probably the best I felt all offseason – well, training camp, per se – but just trying to do everything I can to be back.”

Jaylon Johnson is sorely needed for an important game.

The Vikings’ offense is built around superstar wide receiver Justin Jefferson. Containing him is a top priority, and Chicago knows it will have a hard time doing that without Jaylon Johnson. It sounds like the injury is responding as he hoped upon returning to Halas Hall. The upcoming injury report will offer more details about how the Bears feel about his progress. If he’s declared a non-participant, that will strongly indicate that they don’t feel he’s ready. It should improve their odds of claiming a win on opening night if he can go. Johnson sounds eager to get back. The coaching staff will make the call. Ben doesn’t strike as the kind of guy who will push a player through an injury. This will come down to the training staff’s assessment. We should know by Saturday.

Every position on the roster appeared to be situated for the Chicago Bears after the preseason. Caleb Williams was the quarterback. D'Andre Swift is the running back. D.J. Moore and Rome Odunze are the wide receivers. Montez Sweat and Dayo Odeyingbo are the edge rushers. Jaylon Johnson and Tyrique Stevenson remain the cornerbacks. There was, however, a major exception. The team had not picked who their starting left tackle would be. Head coach Ben Johnson insisted the team was working through the process. None of the options had managed to stand out during training camp; thus, the competition continued.

Now, with Monday Night Football less than a week away, the Bears knew they had to make a decision. Johnson announced on Tuesday that Braxton Jones would start against the Minnesota Vikings. It isn’t a big surprise. Jones has the most proven experience of the group. Kiran Amegadjie suffered another injury setback. Ozzy Trapilo is a rookie and had to shift over from right tackle. Theo Benedet came on late, but his lack of length was problematic. This enables Jones to hang onto his job despite clearly not being 100% healthy.

The Chicago Bears suggested the competition may not be over.

Johnson stated that it could run all the way into the bye week. Much depends on how the starter performs early and how others look in practice as the season unfolds. The bye offers the Chicago Bears their last chance to make a change, so they will use it if necessary. That puts Jones under the microscope. He’s proven he can be a quality starter when healthy. The problem has been staying that way. He was nagged by injuries last season, even before his broken tibia that ended his year. This season marks his last chance to hold the starting job and earn a lucrative second contract. Jones is a free agent next spring. Chicago would love to reward him with an extension. However, they haven’t seen enough to justify one. The first month of the season is the most important stretch of his career.

People aren’t sure what to expect from the Chicago Bears this year. Most agree they upgraded at head coach, going from Matt Eberflus to Ben Johnson. Yet after years of expecting better seasons from the franchise, most have approached 2025 with a degree of quiet uncertainty. On paper, they should challenge for a playoff spot. However, that’s been said many times over the past decade, and the end result was always the same. There is no telling that this season will be any different, especially with how stacked their schedule looks.

Still, there are reasons for optimism. At least that is what ESPN analyst Seth Walder thinks. He examined the Bears’ situation with his analytics eye and made a prediction that will shock many.

Bold prediction for 2025: The Bears will rank in the top six in pass block win rate. This is, in part, because I’m buying their offensive line retooling and they have two tackles in Darnell Wright and Jones (assuming he wins the job) who were above average in PBWR in 2023 before falling off in 2024. It doesn’t mean there won’t be sacks — a lot of that is on Williams — but strong blocking will help all facets of the passing game. — Walder

Offensive line play has been a core issue for the Bears since the early 2010s. Outside of one or two seasons, they’ve struggled to consistently protect the quarterback. However, the arrivals of Joe Thuney, Drew Dalman, and Jonah Jackson along the interior and the hiring of Dan Roushar as offensive line coach have created optimism for the first time.

If true, the Chicago Bears should become competitive immediately.

Pass protection haunted them throughout last season. Yes, some of it came from Caleb Williams‘ inability to unload the ball on time, leading to unnecessary sacks. However, the protection was also just bad. One thing about head coach Ben Johnson during his time in Detroit was his ability to mitigate pressure through scheming. Jared Goff was never sacked more than 31 times in any of his three seasons.

When Williams was sacked twice or fewer times in a game last year, the Bears were 3-2, with him throwing six touchdowns and no interceptions. That is why the Chicago Bears invested so heavily in the offensive line. They knew improved protection would lead to team success. Last season, nine of the ten teams that finished with a top-10 pass-block win rate made the playoffs. This is no small thing if the Bears pull it off.

Ask any of my friends what I would do were I to be named the Dictator of Planet Earth and you’ll be met with an exhausted, almost droning response: “He would end the internet.” Despite DaBearsBlog, a brand I have proudly grown for two decades, being an utter impossibility without it, the internet is responsible for all-but-destroying sports media, completely dismantling the concept of sports writing, and dehumanizing sports discourse writ large. The insightful newspaper commentaries of Bob Ryan, Jerry Izenberg, and Dan Jenkins have been replaced by the racist diatribes of PackersPenis696969696969. What was once singularly the purview of the old drunk at the end of the bar – the one who hated Randall Cunningham and Warren Moon but could never really explain why – is now the domain of the everyday. Hell, not even the everyday. The every second.

Sports conversations are crass now. They are ugly. The reason is anonymity. Anonymity is impossible in the barroom, or the corner store, or the stadium, because everyone in those locations can both (a) see your face and (b) punch it. Until the internet, you had to run into someone wearing a Lions Starter jacket randomly to rag on their defensive injuries. Or even better, you had to attend a game where the Lions were playing. This was, of course, back when people attending sporting events did so in stadiums designed exclusively for consuming the sporting event. Now, sports fandom has come to be defined by the amount of trolling one can do on the social media platform of their choice. And folks, to paraphrase the kids, that ain’t it.

Sports fandom should be honest, and it should be predicated on a belief that defies mockery. (Site name notwithstanding.) Belief is the point. Belief is what makes the first week of the NFL season feel like a holiday. Belief does not require naivety or blind loyalty. It does not mean obsessively defending everything an organization does or does not do. Belief merely requires a suspension of cynicism and an emotional openness; to be thrilled, to be enthralled, to be moved in a way that only sports seem to achieve within us. When the team you root for rewards that belief, ecstasy. When the team doesn’t, despair. That’s sports. That’s sports fandom. But none of it is possible without some semblance of belief.

Stephen Sondheim’s Follies has a song called “Could I Leave You?” In the song, a wife sings to her husband, a husband who has cheated on her for years, a husband she has watched turn into a man she no longer recognizes, about their tiring relationship. She sings a profound line: “How do you wipe tears away when your eyes are dry?” What Sondheim is describing, in the voice of the ex-showgirl Phyllis, is an essential component of apathy: how can anyone grieve the death of a relationship when they no longer give a shit about its life? How can you be enthralled or deflated by an organization if you never believed in them from the start? How can you be elated by the 57-yard-field goal to win a ballgame if you don’t believe? How can you get angry about a coach’s decision-making costing your team a playoff game if you don’t believe?

This is a space for believers, for those who consider the possible. And this is a Bears team that warrants belief. This is a team with (potential) rising stars at coach and quarterback. This is a team with some electric talent on the outside and pricey blockers inside. This is a team with enough defensive talent, and coaching, to keep them in every ballgame. It is far-fetched, perhaps, to call them Super Bowl contenders at the beginning of September 2025, but it is not far-fetched in the slightest to suggest they should be playing tournament football in early 2026. And every team in the tournament has a chance to play on that final Sunday in February.

This is the 2025 NFL season in Chicago. Believers welcome.

Dan Campbell sent Ben Johnson off from Detroit after three terrific seasons with one warning: don’t you dare take any other assistants on the staff. Only one exception was made. Antwaan Randle El went with him as the new wide receivers coach and assistant head coach because he was a Chicago native. He got to go home. Other than that, Johnson abided by his Campbell’s rule. However, it appears that didn’t stop the Bears’ head coach from trying to find ways around it. That includes trying to swipe his eventual replacement before the Lions got him.

Everybody knows the story. Detroit hired John Morton as Johnson’s heir to the offensive coordinator job. It made sense. He’d spent time on the staff in 2022 and had gone on to do great work helping develop Bo Nix in Denver. Campbell wanted to bring him back. Many didn’t know that Johnson also had him in mind for a top position in Chicago. Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press revealed the details of what happened. In the end, the Lions could offer two things the Bears couldn’t.

Campbell and Morton spent 10 or 15 minutes on the phone talking ball as Morton and his girlfriend milled about the lobby. When Morton hung up, his phone buzzed with another familiar number – Johnson’s.

Eight years after he got his one and only chance to call plays in the NFL – 16 games with the New York Jets in the 2017 season – Morton was suddenly the most in-demand offensive mind in coaching.

Johnson wanted Morton to join his staff in Chicago, and after Morton hung up and eventually made his way to his room, he spent the night tossing and turning and debating his future…

…“I talked to some people and they’re like, ‘Dude, if (Campbell) offers you the job, you freaking take it. What are you, an idiot?’ ” Morton said.

Ben Johnson would’ve scored a quality assistant in Morton.

The 55-year-old has a long, proven track record going back over two decades in college and the NFL. He got started in Oakland, where he helped the Raiders reach the Super Bowl in 2002. He was essential to helping Sean Payton kickstart the rise of the New Orleans Saints in 2006. Jim Harbaugh brought him to San Francisco, where he helped them reach the Super Bowl in 2012. Then he returned to Oakland, where he helped them make another playoff run. The guy has coached several different positions, giving him a unique perspective on how to handle an offense. His experience would’ve undoubtedly been a boon for Ben Johnson. However, Detroit could offer play-calling duties and a more proven offensive roster.

One could only feel envious of Green Bay Packers fans when the news broke. For the first time in what feels like decades, the organization made a blockbuster trade. They acquired superstar pass rusher Micah Parsons from the Dallas Cowboys for two 1st round picks and former Pro Bowl defensive tackle Kenny Clark. It was like the Khalil Mack trade for Chicago Bears fans back in 2018. The potential fallout from a franchise standpoint is clear. If Parsons plays up to his typical ability, that defense got significantly better.

However, a small undercurrent went almost unmentioned in the euphoria. Parsons was asked about a supposed back injury he was dealing with. The edge rusher dismissed it, stating he felt good. Days later, reports surfaced that the issue was more serious than he let on. It seems Parson suffered damage to the facet joint of his spinal column between the L4 and L5 discs in his lower back. The situation is significant enough that he will need an epidural to reduce the pain. Not only that, but apparently it isn’t something that will go away. He’ll have to manage it during the season.

Micah Parsons should still be a force, but this development isn’t nothing.

Anybody who follows football knows that back injuries of any type are a big red flag. That goes especially for defensive linemen who often put so much torque and stress on it every play. Micah Parsons is famous for his ability to bend and use leverage to his advantage. Having a lower back problem is pretty significant for him—lots of players often never fully escape such issues once they start surfacing. Tony Romo and Matthew Stafford are quarterbacks, and they didn’t. Former Bears 1st round pick came into the league with back issues and saw them resurface multiple times in his career. Parsons will be a major problem moving forward, but it’s fair to question what this development may do to his body clock. His prime window might not be as wide as Green Bay fans hoped.

Ben Johnson has plenty of fans in the media. They’ve praised him at every turn following his glittering three-year stint with the Detroit Lions as their offensive coordinator. His work helped them produce probably the most successful two-year run in modern franchise history. When you have a top-five offense every year, it’s only a matter of time before you get a head coaching job in the NFL. The real shock was that the Chicago Bears became the team that managed to reel him in.

An interesting question many haven’t asked is what the rest of the league thinks of Johnson. There have been plenty of instances where a coach doesn’t have near the number of admirers among actual football people compared to fans and media. Jeff Howe of The Athletic decided to collect some data on this. He polled several coaches and executives around the NFL with one question. Who are the three best offensive play-callers in the league right now? The results were striking. Rams head coach Sean McVay claimed the top spot, with 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan sitting behind him at #2. Right there, ahead of Kevin O’Connell and Andy Reid, was Johnson at #3.

“Johnson got a ton of love for his work in Detroit, so the voters are evidently predicting carryover to his head coaching role with the Bears.”

Ben Johnson is the real deal.

People must understand that putting him ahead of Reid, a future Hall of Famer, is pretty crazy. Many consider him one of the great offensive geniuses of the past 30 years. It is the highest praise that executives believe Ben Johnson is on that same tier. It also means big things for the Bears. If these assessments are correct, a lot of winning is on the way. McVay and Shanahan have both been to multiple Super Bowls. O’Connell has made the playoffs twice, winning at least 13 games in each of those seasons. Andy Reid has three rings. Great offensive play callers thrive in today’s league. Johnson also inherits a pretty good roster that was augmented with more firepower this offseason. It would be a shock if he’s not winning by next year at the latest.