Bear Digest

Top Reasons to Love Ben Johnson's Chicago Bears on Valentine's Day

Ranking the best reasons to love where Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears stand after a season when they surprised everyone with a leap forward.
Gene Chamberlain|
Caleb Williams leaves the field to the locker room after engineering the Bears' comeback from 18 behind to beat the Packers in the playoffs.
Caleb Williams leaves the field to the locker room after engineering the Bears' comeback from 18 behind to beat the Packers in the playoffs. | Matt Marton-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

Every Bears fan loved the way the team took to Ben Johnson's coaching in 2025 and Caleb Williams responded by leading seven comeback wins in the final two minutes.

If there's one thing that will capture the hearts of fans, it's rallying to escape after all is lost. Doing it repeatedly only increases the fans' feelings exponentially.

Simply put, it was a sweetheart of a season, and even the heartbreak of seeing it end two wins short of a Super Bowl didn't seem great considering the promise ahead.

On Valentine's Day, it time to take a moment and reflect on the 10 reasons to love the Chicago Bears and their chances moving forward.

10. Austin Booker's awakening

Booker went through the first 23 games he played with 2 1/2 sacks and 11 pressures, then the lights went on so to speak. After the loss at Green Bay, he responded with 4 1/2 sacks, and 15 pressures for six games including the playofs. It wasn't hard to take notice. Jordan Love sure did. Remember, Booker didn't even play in the first nine games in 2025, either.

9. Luther Burden's targeting

After his Week 3 flea-flicker touchdown catch against Dallas made his potential felt. However, he didn't take off within the offense. He averaged only 1.8 targets for the first seven games, had 13 catches and three times had negative receiving yards in games. Suddenly, everything changed for him after he missed the win over Cincinnati due to injury. From then on, he averaged 5.9 targets a game. It helped his cause when fellow slot Olamide Zaccheaus dropped passes against the Giants to start the stretch of games because confidence in Burden grew higher. Burden made 40 receptions in his final 10 games, counting the playoffs. He gained 547 yards in that stretch. It let him finish third among the top 200 receivers in the NFL in yards per route run (2.8).

8. Colston Loveland's arrival

Six games into the season, their first-round rookie tight end had only been targeted more than three times twice and hadn't made more than three catches in a game. After that, he never made less than three catches and was held to that few catches just three times. His 118-yard day and mad dash to the end zone pushed him prominently into Williams' sightline. He had 47 of his team-high 58-catch total in the last 10 games counting the playoffs.

7. Matt Feinstein's calculator

He's the guy doing the restructuring of contracts to get the Bears first, under the salary cap, and then to a place where they can afford to add some players and/or bring back their own free agents.

6. Dennis Allen's creativity

If they can get Allen the horses for a better run defense and pass rush, you have to think the team could surge forward again. Remember, they did all of this with the worst-ranked defense (29thh) and worst scoring defense (23rd) to make the playoffs. Allen had to squeeze out every ounce of creativity with seven starters out on defense at one point due to injuries. If they even increase personnel

5. Ben Johnson beside Ryan Poles

One year drafting talent led to four potential young starters and key contributors. Now they have to prove they can do this together on the other side of the ball, and that's not as easy. Neither one has a past record for success doing that.

4. A real running game

The combination of better run blocking and Kyle Monangai added as the snot-knocking running back makes the Bears third-ranked running game legitimate again. Two years earlier they were No. 1 but did it with the gimmicky Justin Fields-led  three-headed attack. Real NFL offenses don't operate running attacks that way because getting all their rushing yards from a QB can take too much away from their passing game and also leads to lazy blocking up front. Williams scrambles but only as a last resort. The run blocking is what's getting them more yards now, along with Johnson's tricky formations and play design.

3. Caleb Williams' leap forward

It didn't look a way that pleased snoody analytic experts but it occurred nonetheless. His touchdown/interceptions ratio improved, as did his passer rating (90.1), yards per attempt (6.9), passing EPA (43.96) and even the worthless ESPN analytic of QBR (58.2). More than anything else, he jumped ahead at leading the team under pressure. He came into the year with two fourth-quarter comebacks and one game-winning drive. He now has nine fourth-quarterback comebacks and eight game-winning drives, counting postseason.

2. Caleb Williams' potential

His 58.1% completions and 42.9% success rate passing only underscores how much better he can become once he starts hitting the shorter passes to keep drives moving. If those numbers go up, other numbers will. Then, there could be no stopping him.

1. Ben Johnson

No single player, coach or person with the organization has had as much positive impact as he did with his arrival since the 1980. The offense is No. 6 after being last in 2024. Their passing game is ranked 10th, the highest since thy were fifth in 2013. Johnson accomplished this with a second-year QB in a new offense and with an injury-riddled defense. It would fun to know how close George McCaskey came to balking at his asking price for a contract, or if Kevin Warren an/or Ryan Poles had to talk the Bears owner into paying the estimated $13-plus million a year.

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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.