Bear Digest

Why Chicago Bears fail again in court of public opinion after changes

Despite Ben Johnson's hiring, upgrading in many areas, and with Caleb Williams now in Year 2, the Bears can't gain momentum among analysts for one major reason.
Gene Chamberlain|
Cairo Santos celebrates the only Bears NFC North win last season after making the game-winning kick against Green Bay.
Cairo Santos celebrates the only Bears NFC North win last season after making the game-winning kick against Green Bay. | Dan Powers/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin via Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

The team that won the offseason again still finds gaining respect difficult.

Perhaps it's partly because the Bears annually make a habit of building their roster up to the point where they're viewed as a possible juggernaut before disappointing, but the Bears can't seem to win over analysts to a point where they're considered a real breakthrough team—even with Ben Johnson as coach.

Even with all of their additions, the Bears rank only 17th for roster strength in the eyes of Pro Football Focus' Max Chadwick and Dalton Wasserman.

The Bears rank only fifth most likely team to break a playoff drought according to NFL.com's digital content editor Jeremy Bergman. Fox Sports' David Helman rated them behind Arizona, Miami, Dallas, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Cincinnati and San Francisco among non-playoff teams with the best chances for turning it around and making the postseason.

Helman even went so far as to say he's so impressed with what the Bears have done that it almost feels "harsh" to put them so far down his list. But he did it anyway, adding, "The problem is mainly that reaching the playoffs looks like one hell of a Mt. Everest-sized task in 2025."

The most obvious reason to suspect for all of this disrespect is Caleb Williams.

To be sure, Williams' lack of experience and success does factor into it. CBS Sports' Pete Prisco placed them only 17th in power rankings and described all of their roster improvements but explained the ranking this way: "Now it's time for second-year quarterback Caleb Williams to step up and show improvement."

However, this isn't a predominant line of thought. Aaron Schatz of ESPN wrote a story rating teams' chances of going from worst to first and describes a situation Bears fans largely anticipate.

"The Bears finished 22nd in FPI (ESPN's power index) last season, but they're seen as above-average entering the 2025 season," Schatz wrote. "That's because Caleb Williams should improve in his second year under center, and the Bears added a lot of talent on the offensive line to give him better protection."

Given this expected Williams improvement with Johnson's tutelage, there must be another common element for all of these slights besides the QB.

The one common element in many of these slaps to the face is probably best described by Bergman and by Schatz.

"The Bears are currently the least proven team in the league's toughest division," Bergman wrote.

It's the old tough division thing, joined by something else similar.

"The biggest issue holding the Bears back this season is that they have the second-hardest schedule in the NFL, per my DVOA rankings," Schatz wrote. "All three other NFC North teams (Vikings, Lions and Packers) made the postseason in 2024, and only Minnesota is expected to decline in 2025."

The Bears are pretty much going to need to gain Williams that experience to put him over the top among QBs, and also prove themselves against all of these stronger opponents before they're ever going to climb the ladder of expectations.

The Packers are strong enough they can simply cut a former Pro Bowl cornerback in Jaire Alexander. The Vikings believe in what they've done enough to not want Aaron Rodgers and turn it all over to second-year "rookie" J.J. McCarthy. The Lions lost half their coaching staff and changed three-fifths of their starting offensive line but still get rated among the league's top four or five teams.

People are just going to need to see it to believe it from the Bears, and the NFC North is going to be one very tough proving ground.

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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.