Five seasons in, this one finally feels like it adds up.
I’ve covered the Chicago Bears through resets and rebuilds that never quite lived up to what they were promised. I’ve written through coaching firings, quarterback pivots, front-office shakeups, and more false starts than I can neatly summarize. And until this season, I hadn’t once covered a Bears team that won — and not in flashes, not in theory, but in a way that felt real and repeatable.
I still remember when Justin Fields scored his first NFL touchdown.
I was at Dunning Pour House, an old-school neighborhood tavern tucked into a residential pocket on Chicago’s Northwest Side — one of my wife’s and my favorite local spots. Fields was a rookie then, watching most of the Bears’ season opener against the Rams from the sideline. With just over four minutes left in the third quarter, he finally got the call. Four-yard run. Touchdown.
The Bears still lost, but in that moment, the room buzzed with hope. Unfiltered optimism. The belief that something new was beginning.
Photo: Getty ImagesThat moment stuck with me because it mirrored my own. Like Fields, I’d been watching from the sidelines, waiting for my chance to break into this professionally. When he crossed the goal line that night, I felt it in my gut — my shot was coming too. The very next morning. That’s when I officially started at Bleacher Nation, brimming with the same optimism Bears fans felt watching Fields score for the first time.
That optimism didn’t last — for either of us.
Matt Nagy was already on the hot seat. Everyone knew it. An Andy Dalton injury forced his hand, thrusting Fields into the lineup in Week 3 against Cleveland. He threw for 68 yards. He was sacked nine times. It was chaotic and unfair. And that Sunday, I got sacked too.
My reaction piece — raw, emotional, and correct in spirit — was too much. Too strong. Too soon. Michael Cerami kicked it back, and it remains one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned since turning this from something I loved into something I do for a living. Passion alone isn’t enough. Perspective matters. Timing matters. Growth matters.
I needed that lesson — and I got tested on it quickly.
The following spring, I moved onto the Chicago Blackhawks beat, replacing Mario Tirabassi after he departed for CHGO. That stretch wasn’t about line combinations or playoff races. It was about accountability, sensitivity, and understanding the weight that sports coverage can carry. The Kyle Beach scandal, a three-time Stanley Cup–winning general manager being fired, and an entire front office wiped out forced me to learn how to cover something bigger than wins and losses. It demanded restraint, care, and respect — and I was better prepared for it because I’d already taken my lumps.
These things take time.
Winning takes time.Trust takes time.Building culture takes time.
During my years covering the Bears, Ryan Pace was fired. Ryan Poles was hired. The organization tried — sometimes clumsily, sometimes publicly — to modernize itself. Philosophies shifted. Timelines reset. And hovering over it all was the stadium drama: Arlington Heights, lakefront proposals, renderings, statements, counter-statements, and a fan base often louder about where the Bears might play than how they were actually playing.
The Justin Fields era never lived up to what it was supposed to be. Nagy was gone after my first season. The Eberflus era never really launched. And then came the familiar overlap — a lame-duck head coach overseeing the development of yet another first-round quarterback.
This time, it was Caleb Williams.
Kirby Lee-USA TODAY SportsWilliams took his lumps as a rookie, too. Sixty-eight sacks — the third-most in league history. Some of that was on him. A lot of it was structural. He didn’t yet have the leadership or infrastructure around him to protect him from repeating the same mistakes. In a strange parallel, I was learning the same thing — how much the right leadership matters when you’re trying to grow.
Why the 2025 Chicago Bears Feel Different
Then everything changed.
Ben Johnson arrived in Chicago and reset the standard. He didn’t soften things. He didn’t coddle anyone. He coached Williams hard — relentlessly so — and early on, that relationship was fragile.
Williams has been candid about how it evolved.
“The constant meetings, the constant communication, his consistency in who he is,” Williams said. “He wasn’t on one day and off the next or on one week and off the next. That’s who he’s been.”
That consistency mattered.
“When you realize that’s who somebody is,” Williams continued, “the respect, the trust, the loyalty grows. And then you go out there on the football field, and what he’s saying works… That trust and loyalty starts to grow.”
Johnson’s demands weren’t abstract, either.
“Oh man. Everything,” Williams said when asked what Johnson was hardest on him about. “Drops. Footwork. Cadence. Plays in the huddle. Diagnosing defenses. Getting the ball out faster. I can keep going on and on.”
Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn ImagesThe work showed up quickly.
The Bears opened 0–2. A fourth-quarter collapse on Monday Night Football against the Vikings felt painfully familiar. The following week, Johnson’s former team, the Lions, handed Chicago a blowout loss. Same doubts. Same anxiety. Same old Bears.
Then something clicked.
Since that start, the Bears have won 11 of their last 14 games. They’re NFC North champions. The No. 2 seed and a home playoff game at Soldier Field are in sight. They’ve beaten the Packers. Williams is 109 yards shy of the franchise’s single-season passing record and 270 yards away from becoming the first 4,000-yard passer in team history.
One regular-season game remains. The Lions. Sunday. The get-back game Johnson and this team have been waiting for since September.
Then come the playoffs. Likely a Soldier Field rematch with Green Bay.
And for the first time in a long time, these don’t feel like games the Bears hope to win. They feel like games they expect to compete in — and believe they can win.
Williams took his sacks. Learned the lessons. Now he’s one of the most talked-about quarterbacks in the league. I took mine too. And five seasons in, I finally get to cover a Bears team that rewards patience, accountability, and growth.
This season didn’t happen overnight. It took years of churn, mistakes, and uncomfortable lessons — on the field, and in the front office.
But for the first time, it feels sustainable.
Like a beginning — not a fleeting flash before the next reset.
It took time.It took trust.And it was worth the wait.
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