Albert Breer names the one thing that could make the Bears surprise contenders

Why do the Chicago Bears, who currently sit atop the NFC North with a 7-3 record, still have less than a 50% chance to make the playoffs according to several models? Put simply, not everyone believes they can maintain this pace.

Count Sports Illustrated’s own Albert Breer among those detractors for the present—with one caveat.

“I think this is one of those pixie dust runs for the Bears—five of their seven wins have come by five points or fewer—and I’d enjoy it if I were you,” he wrote on Thursday.

That sentiment follows a train of continued (and dare I say warranted) skepticism about the Bears going into their toughest stretch of the season. While it is fair to say the Bears are a good team at this point—hard to be 7-3 otherwise—it’s also reasonable to wonder how they’ll fare against better competition after grinding out wins against the lowly Raiders, Joe Burrow-less Bengals, and Giants and beating up on the Cowboys and Saints.

That’s not to say there isn’t plenty to like about these Bears compared to past versions. Breer points out, for example, the “violence and speed” the Bears play with under Johnson, who clearly brought some of the Detroit mindset to Chicago and not just the play calls.

But if the Bears are going to truly ascend into a Super Bowl contender this year, the longtime NFL reporter thinks one specific thing must happen. You can probably guess what it is…

“What could push this thing to the next level is the guy they drafted with the No. 1 pick, who’s been up and down through 10 games,” Breer added. “Caleb Williams has made a bunch of big plays in comeback wins—his two big scrambles against the Giants and his seam throw to Colston Loveland against the Bengals were nails—but he’s also battled some inconsistency (he’s failed to complete 60% of his passes in six of his past seven games).

This is still his first year under Johnson, whose ability to maximize a quarterback was a calling card, so I’d advise having some level of patience with him. Williams was pretty raw coming out of USC, more so than a lot of folks thought, and there’s clearly a high level of ability to harvest there. If Johnson can do that on the fly, and he turns corners as we approach the winter months, the sky’s the limit for that Chicago team.”

For this particular Bears team, Breer has a point.

Their defense is good, but not potentially generational like the Denver Broncos unit carrying Bo Nix. They don’t have a Saquon Barkley or Derrick Henry-esque you just give the ball to 25 times a game and let them drag opposing defenses across the field. They also don’t have one single pass-catcher or weapon who’s so unguardable they tilt coverage in their direction. And Ben Johnson can only do so much as a playcaller; he can’t play the game.

Williams is the key. He always has been.

We’re seeing Drake Maye change the perception of the New England Patriots overnight and put himself into the MVP conversation in the process. In an AFC that looks stranger than ever, you can see that team winning a playoff game because Maye is that good.

That’s the level of faith Williams has to instill in people down the stretch: that he’s so good he can rewrite the Bears’ timeline on the fly. He’s not quite there yet, though the glimpses of special talent make themselves clear every game. If he can start putting it together from a timing standpoint and hit the layups as well as the Houdini acts, he’ll make insiders like Breer start seeing this team differently. Until then, the jury’s still out.

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