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Bear Digest

One Midseason Poll Consensus Labels Bears as NFC's Super Bowl Team

A look ahead to the season's second half by Sports Illustrated forecasts the Bears as NFC champions on the majority of Super Bowl predictions.
Gene Chamberlain|
D'Andre Swift carries against Jacksonville in London in 2024. On SI's midseason writers' poll, these teams were named Super Bowl combatants on three of eight ballots.
D'Andre Swift carries against Jacksonville in London in 2024. On SI's midseason writers' poll, these teams were named Super Bowl combatants on three of eight ballots. | USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Connect

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Chicago Bears

A 7-2 first half by the Bears with the only losses marked by a major asterisk has convinced some they are Super Bowl material, and even eventual winners of the Lombardi Trophy.

Making it there for the first time in 20 years would be a major step forward from last year, winning it would be the dream of all Bears fans since the 1985 season. It would also squash regression talk, as if this first half hasn't already done it.

It's all on Caleb Williams and a defense fortified greatly by the addition of Jeffery Simmons. Two Sports Illustrated writers see the end result as the trophy case at Halas Hall welcoming a new addition.

In their midseason report, SI writers and editors comprised their picks for the remainder of the season and the playoffs. A panel of eight put forth their picks and the Bears came away with more Super Bowl appearances than any other NFC team. The Bears were the NFC team for five of the eight, with the 49ers getting the nod for two writers. Albert Breer was the only one naming someone besides the Bears or Niners representing the NFC. He picked the Rams, even after their terrible start.

The Bears as the favored team in any poll for a Super Bowl must shock all of those who saw them as regressing prior to the start of the season.

HOW ROME ODUNZE RATES IN QUEST FOR BEARS TO PICK UP OPTION

It's Bears and Jaguars

The Bears and the Jaguars are hot commodities at this time, surprising considering both Buffalo and San Francisco have started 7-1. John Pluym and Mitch Goldich both have the Bears winning in the Super Bowl over the Jaguars with Caleb Williams earning Super Bowl MVP.

Pluym has it 28-24 and Goldich 29-26.

"Williams played in two wildly entertaining playoff games last season, and if the Bears can outlast the rest of this season's NFC North, all that experience will serve him well in the season's biggest moments," wrote Goldich.

Pluym saw the Jeffery Simmons trade as the last needed piece to complement Williams.

"I’m going all in on the Bears and Williams to beat Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars in a Super Bowl featuring two of the best offensive minds in the game, Chicago’s Ben Johnson and Jacksonville’s Liam Coen," Pluym wrote.

This is impressive considering Pluym is a long-time Vikings guy and Minnesota was one of two teams to beat the Bears.

Conor Orr had the same two teams but with the Jaguars winning it late on a field goal after an interception thrown by Williams. The defenses will be punished, he says: Jaguars 37, Bears 35.

"After the defensive counterrevolution of 2025 and the dominance of the Seahawks, we’re all tired of pretending to admire defensive gameplay and just want a game so full of chunk passes and explosive runs that our eyes glaze over," Orr wrote.

Coen vs. Johnson, a budding rivalry

Perhaps they could call that matchup the Regression Bowl, because it was Ben Johnson who brought up how his team was being named top regression candidates after Coen had been popping off prior to the season about how many national telecasts the Bears are on this year.

The other two writers who had the Bears making the Super Bowl were Mike Kadlick and Eva Geitheim. Kadlick called it Chiefs 28, Bears 17 and Geitheim Broncos 28, Bears 21.

"Their defense has been better than I anticipated—even before the Jeffery Simmons trade—and they are the most balanced team in the NFC North," Geitheim wrote.

For a team everyone was far too willing to label regressive, the Bears have sure come a long way at the midpoint.

Considering they play four games yet within the division and both the Jaguars and Bills, the Bears will have the ability to indicate how accurate those Bears-Jaguars Super Bowl predictions are long in advance of the game.

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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.