Bear Digest

NFL insider says Bears’ comeback vs. Packers hints at Chicago’s bright future

The Chicago Bears' future looks fantastic after their comeback win over the Packers in the Wild Card round.
Bryan Perez|
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Chicago Bears

There are bright futures, and then there's the future of the Chicago Bears.

Simply put, it's blinding.

Sports Illustrated's NFL insider Albert Breer dove into how much hype there is around this team following Chicago's dramatic come-from-behind win over the Green Bay Packers in the Wild Card round.

The Bears' demeanor at halftime, trailing 21-3, when all seemed lost, was an indicator that there's something different about what's being built in Chicago.

"In the locker room, no one was flipping the Gatorade over, or giving some firebrand speech you’d see in a movie," Breer wrote. "Instead, it was about figuring out what went wrong, and how to fix it. Because there was real genuine belief it’d get fixed, the kind you can only have if you have a coach and quarterback capable of bringing you back in that kind of setting.

"The conversation, wide receiver DJ Moore told me postgame, 'That we’re better than what we did in the first half, and we just need to go out there and execute and be detailed.'”

It's the kind of emotional control that Ben Johnson has preached all season, both to Caleb Williams and the rest of the roster. It paid dividends Saturday night, when the Bears kept their eyes forward and approached their comeback win one play at a time.

"On the coaching side," Breer wrote, "the players believed that Johnson and his staff would find a way to generate plays that would bring them back."

That belief was well-placed. Johnson dialed up the kind of play sequencing that did, in fact, lead to three straight touchdown drives to cap the miracle fourth-quarter comeback.

Breer summed it all up perfectly.

"The scary thing about all this? It sure seems like the Bears are just scratching the surface of where Johnson and Williams can take a talented, balanced team."

Indeed, the 2025 season is still going. Maybe, just maybe, Johnson will pull off the unthinkable and win a Super Bowl in his first season with the Chicago Bears. More likely, however, is that Johnson has set the foundation for a new reality of Bears football, one that's centered on winning -- and winning a lot -- year after year.

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Bryan Perez
BRYAN PEREZ

Bryan Perez founded and operated Bears Talk, a Chicago sports blog. Prior to that, he covered the Bears for USA Today’s Bears Wire and NBC Sports Chicago. In addition to his Chicago Bears coverage, Perez is a respected member of NFL Draft media and was a past winner of The Huddle's Mock Draft competition. Bryan's past life includes time as a Northeast scout for the CFL's Ottawa Redblacks.

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