Bear Digest

How the Chicago Bears often lose heart in San Francisco

A tradition going back beyond the great 1963 Bears defense and extending into the 2020s is getting destroyed in San Francisco.
Gene Chamberlain|
Brock Purdy gts off a pass to beat Kyler Gordon's blitz in last season's victory by the 49ers over the Bears.
Brock Purdy gts off a pass to beat Kyler Gordon's blitz in last season's victory by the 49ers over the Bears. | Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

Bears coach Ben Johnson was referring to the Christmas holiday coming on a Thursday and Pro Bowl berths during a week of preparation for the 49ers, but he uncovered a long Bears history of disappointment.

"A lot of stuff going on this week with distractions potentially and things of that nature, but I think it'll be a good thing for us to go on the road and really focus in on this game," Johnson said.

It's never a good week for the Bears to go to San Francisco.

The Sunday night game in San Francisco could be the ultimate test of Johnson's coaching ability.

It's not that the 49ers are a team above and beyond the Bears in talent and ability. This is yet to be proven.

It's not that the 49ers have a coach very effective in his system and at in-game strategy, although this could also be the case with Kyle Shanahan.

The problem is this terrible jinx or funk that seems to envelop the Bears over the last 65 years when they travel to San Francisco. There must be some supernatural explanation, because the same thing hasn't happened to other teams going there over this stretch of time.

Even back to the days when the Bears and 49ers were rivals in the NFL Western Conference and played twice a year, whether it was at Kezar Stadium, Candlestick Park or now Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, the result has often been a Chicago blowout loss. The average is a Bears deficit of 13.28 points in all road games against the 49ers since 1960. In road losses only, it's 22.8.

It started when George Halas was coach in 1960 and has run through Mike Ditka and Lovie Smith. Bears quarterback Caleb Williams experienced it when Thomas Brown was interim coach last season.

Even during the dominant Ditka years, this usually occurred.

A signature Ditka win in 1985 was the 26-10 beating they gave the defending world champion Niners as revenge for a 23-0 blowout loss in the 1984 NFC championship game at Candlestick Park. However, there was Ditka throwing his ABC gum at 49ers fans a few years later.

It happened with good Bears teams and bad ones, some building and some in the midst of collapsing. Dick Jauron took a team there for the 2003 season opener and it managed to crush the hopes for an entire season with a 49-7 loss.

The Bears have lost in double digits in 18 of their last 28 games in San Francisco. This might not sound overly depressing but consider how so many NFL games are one-score games and this is pretty serious. Of those 18 games, 14 were at least three-score games.

They went through a stretch of games when they lost by 42, 17, 29, 38, 26 and 41. Those deficits sound like some tiny directional school playing a power-5 conference juggernaut rather than common NFL scores.

Last game on the coast was typical for the Bears with a 38-13 loss in 2024.

It was often theorized that the Bears simply don't handle trips to California well due to things like the time change, and they did have many double-digit losses in L.A. to the Rams. However, the series was interrupted by the Rams' move to and back from St. Louis, and the drubbings absorbed were never as consistently administered as those in San Francisco.

Coaches have tried different approaches, like going out a day or two early. Nothing like this has been discussed this week but nothing ever made a difference.

"We are business as usual here," Johnson said. "We’ve got a process we believe in and we’re going to adhere to that. We’re going to exhaust every resource available to go 1-0 this week.”

One noted exception to the Bears' blowout history in San Francisco came in the last Bears win there, 14-9. That came under Matt Nagy in the 2018 season when the Bears won their last NFC North title.

On Sunday night, the Bears could be playing the 49ers with an NFC North title already in their pockets.  That would happen if the Packers lost or tied on Saturday night with Baltimore.
The Bears could clinch it by beating San Francisco.

Regardless, the superstitious or historically inclined might suspect another disaster in San Francisco.

Bears at 49ers

(Since 1960)

1960: 49ers 25, Bears 7

1961: 49ers 41, Bears 31

1962: Bears 30, 49ers 14

1964: 49ers 31, Bears 21

1965: 49ers 52, Bear 24 

1966: 49ers 41, Bears 14

1967: Bears 28, 49ers 14

1969: 49ers 42, Bears 21

1970: 49ers 37, Bears 16

1971: 49ers 13, Bears 0

1975: 49ers 31, Bears 3

1976: Bears 19, 49ers 12

1978: Bears 16, 49ers 13

1979: Bears 28, 49ers 27

1981: 49ers 28, Bears 17

1984: 49ers 23, Bears 0**

1985: Bears 26, 49ers 10

1987: 49ers 41, Bears 0

1989: 49ers 26, Bears 0

1991: 49ers 52, Bears 14

1995: 49ers 44, Bear 15*

2000: 49ers 17, Bears 0

2003: 49ers 49, Bears 7

2009: 49ers 10, Bear 6

2012: 49ers 32, Bears 7

2014: Bears 28, 49ers 20

2018: Bears 14, 49ers 9

2024: 49ers 38, Bears 13

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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.