Bear Digest

Former Bears Coach Warns About the Dangers of Winning Too Fast

Fans of a team starved for victories are going to find it difficult to believe there could be a problem ahead for the Bears because they won right away under Ben Johnson.
Gene Chamberlain|
Ben Johnson will find plenty pf people with heightened expectations now, says former Bears coach Dave Wannstedt.
Ben Johnson will find plenty pf people with heightened expectations now, says former Bears coach Dave Wannstedt. | David Banks-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

Expectations for the next Bears season already seem elevated to extreme heights, and there can be a danger with this.

In fact, one former Bears coach warned about this sort of thing on Thursday and did experience it himself, although maybe not exactly in Chicago.

In his weekly spot on WSCR AM-670's Spiegel & Holmes with Matt Spiegel and The Athletic's Dan Wiederer, former Bears coach Dave Wannstedt warned about the problems that can happen with sudden, unexpected success like Ben Johnson's team had in 2025.

"Sometimes—and you hate to say this because you want to win the Super Bowl every year, that's every team's goals—but sometimes you can win too fast," Wannstedt said.

Did the Bears win too fast? It wasn't fast enough for most fans who wasted their Sundays following a mediocre team ever since the 2018 division title year. It definitely didn't for anyone who waited through six years of Wannstedt as coach wondering when the winning was actually going to come, and it never did.

Yet this was something Wannstedt said he experienced at his second head coaching job, with the Miami Dolphins, after Jimmy Johnson stepped down following a 9-7 1999 season. In Wannstedt's first year, the Dolphins went 11-5 and then won a playoff game.

"We won the division my first year and coach of the year and all that crap," Wannstedt said. "And the next year people were saying 'Super Bowl,' and I'm saying 'What?' "

Maybe that was the problem. He didn't have the same expectations as fans.

The Dolphins lost to the Raiders 27-0 in the playoffs in 2000, then made it back to the playoffs at 11-5 in Wannstedt's second year without winning the division. In their wild-card game, they got flattened by the defending champion Ravens 20-3.

"It wasn't pretty,” Wannstedt told Wiederer and Spiegel, referring to fan/media reaction following the Year 2 defeat when expectations had been high. "So, it's amazing, the fans and the media, how quick they want the next level. I don't care how many games you won or what you did, the next year (fans say), 'We've gotta take it a step farther.'

"That's the coaches' and the players' goals but boy, it's not easy. It's not easy."

It won't be the same

Wannstedt pointed out how the Bears were fortunate to win games early this season, like on the lost fumble by Jayden Daniels. They won on a blocked kick the week before. Plenty went right that might not again.

He even pointed to the dangers of heightened expectations within his own Bears career, like in 1996.

"When we went to the playoff and then we won that playoff game (over Minnesota) and then we actually signed a couple of free agents and obviously we were expecting big things," Wannstedt said.

There was a difference here. It wasn’t one year to the next. The Bears won that playoff game over Minnesota in 1994, his second year, not his first. And the heightened expectations came in 1995 when they went 9-7 without making the playoffs. Then they signed free agents before the 1996 season.

"And then we started off the season on Monday night, Soldier Field, Monday Night Football against the reigning Cowboys Super Bowl champs and then we beat them,” Wannstedt recalled. “So we really felt good then.

“I mean, it was a great momentum all the way through the offseason and obviously Erik Kramer broke his neck and that ended that. We ended up going 7-9."

Kramer did crack a bone in his neck the year after his record-setting season for passing yards and backup Dave Krieg had to play, but anyone who saw that opening win over Dallas realized what was happening there. The Cowboys were playing without a huge chunk of starters, including Michael Irvin.

The real disappointment happened the next year when Wannstedt's team started 0-7 in his fifth year. Everyone wanted him fired but Michael McCaskey wouldn't do it.

One playoff berth in six Bears years, and that in Year 2, probably isn't the same thing as when he was in Miami and expectations had really built after one year like they are with Johnson.

"I can't imagine training camp this year, people getting up there to Halas all and watching practices and trying to get tickets or whatever they're going to do," Wannstedt told Spiegel and Wiederer. "It will truly be at another level than what it's been."

The other side

The thing about heightened expectations is something had to lead to them and in this case it was Ben Johnson and his good-better-best year. If you have heightened expectations, it's sure better than what Bears fans have gotten used to since 2019.

In an age of quick reaction an overreaction, it is true some Bears fans will get bent out of shape if they can't live up to last year's performance. Look at how fast people turned on DJ Moore after on bad pass route. Fans on social media want a player traded who gave them consecutive victories over the Packers for the first time in two decades. That's a little too much for someone to be run out of town over one bad pass route.

But Wannstedt's point is well taken and Johnson has to be prepared for backlash if they aren't as wildly successful. The true fans will realize where the team has been and cut the proper slack.

The others can be ignored for a while.

Of course, patience always has a breaking point an it's likely to be well before they've had one playoff berth in six years, like Wannstedt's Bears had.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.