Some people are fans of the Chicago Bears. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Chicago Bears. This 2025 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.
Your team: Chicago Bears.
2024 record: 5-12. The Bears’ annual fortunes are dictated by two concurrent, arrhythmic, ever-conflicting and millenia-spanning cycles, rather like the Tonalpohualli and Xiuhpohualli of the Mesoamerican Long-Count Calendar.
There’s the Failed Quarterback Development Cycle (Rexgrosskabluii):
- Step 1: Rookie quarterback is ineffective in rookie-quarterback ways.
- Step 2: Former rookie quarterback fails to develop; Bears claim he’s doing fine while making sweeping changes to “unlock his potential.”
- Step 3: Quarterback flunks “last chance”; Bears prepare to draft rookie.
And then there are the waxing and waning phases of Coaching Blame Assignation (Foxnagiphuii):
- Phase 1: New coaches vow to fix the young quarterback.
- Phase 2: Coaches declare quarterback unfixable and release him; blame previous administration for his failure.
- Phase 3: Coaches draft rookie quarterback, lose jobs when he plays like a rookie quarterback.
The Bears were spiraling along at Step 1/Phase 3 late last year when Matt Eberflus—who exhibited all the institutional control of a middle-school substitute teacher who just farted while sneezing—fired offensive coordinator Shane Waldron just weeks before Eberflus himself was axed. The resulting anarchy left rookie Caleb Williams without any guidance, and Williams’s daddy was still driving him to work at that point. Williams endured a league-high 68 sacks, the Bears finished with a non-winning record for the sixth straight year, and owner Virginia Halas McCaskey kicked the bucket in February at age 102, leaving the rest of us to deal with Williams’s V-22 Osprey helicopter father.
Your coach: Ben Johnson was the tactical genius behind Dan Campbell in Detroit. Because when you think of Campbell’s Lions, you don’t think about Campbell’s “valor pleases Crom” speeches or Battle of Thermopylae motivational skills, but of brilliant strategic gambits like Jameson Williams’s option pass to Jahmyr Gibbs while trailing in the fourth quarter of a playoff loss, or all of those let’s-place-our-faith-in-Jared-Goff fourth-down attempts against the 49ers in the 2023 NFC Championship.
Johnson nearly became the Commanders' head coach after the 2023 season, but he pulled a Will Riker and decided to stay aboard the Starship Kneecapbiter because—get this—he was worried that the Commanders organization would be too dysfunctional. So instead of guiding a young quarterback who could be the next Mahomes to further glory in Washington, Johnson gets to teach Williams how to tie his shoelaces.
Bears fans will object here: But Johnson was the most coveted offensive coordinator on the market! Of course he was. That’s who new coaches usually are! Only the Bears hire defensive nonentities from .500 teams like Eberflus, or the grouchy old dustfarter who ordered Peyton Manning to kneel out the clock when tied late in the fourth quarter of a playoff game like John Fox, or exiled-to-Canada Bill Walsh stenographers like Marc Trestman. The last time the Bears pursued a certified offensive hotshot, they played sloppy sevenths when raiding the Chiefs’ staff and came away with Matt Nagy, Andy Reid’s once-and-future mac ‘n’ cheese sous chef. Hiring Johnson wasn’t a coup, merely a flicker of organizational competence. And the NFL is full of purported offensive chess masters who turn out to be Brian Daboll.
Johnson’s defensive majordomo is Dennis Allen, who posted a 26-53 record as a head coach but coordinated some defenses that were good enough to help the Saints reach the playoffs so long as Drew Brees was also completing three-quarters of his passes. His offensive factotum is Declan Doyle, the Riverdance vampire in Sinners.
Your quarterback: Whole corporate management seminars exist about how to deal with young employees like Caleb Williams, who has the physical tools of a future All-Pro but the workplace readiness of a newborn marsupial.
Carl Williams, Caleb’s father/agent/enabler/saboteur, follows his son through life like an overprotective Xenomorph guarding its eggs. Carl combines the virtues of the dad who is no longer allowed within 500 feet of a Little League field with the one who shows the prom date toddler photos of his son playing with Mister Wee Wee in the bathtub. Most of the most unflattering tidbits about Caleb’s rookie season come from Carl, who kept tattling on the Bears to author Seth Wickersham in American Kings: A Biography of a Quarterback, which landed in Bears headquarters like a bunker buster before Johnson could even adjust the height of his desk chair.
The Williamses didn’t want poor Caleb to get stuck on the Bears, which is relatable. They thought they could circumvent the NFL draft by playing a year in the UFL, a profoundly stupid thing for two adults who have already navigated the transfer portal and NIL landscape to think. Seriously, believing for even a second that rinky-dink minor-league football was some get-out-of-draft-free card that no one else had ever exploited is almost as dumb as sailing five miles off the coast and declaring that Williams was draft-ineligible according to maritime law.
After Williams’s sovereign-citizen gambit failed, he reported to the Bears, where (per his father, via Wickersham) no one taught him how to watch film. Everyone on the NFL talking-head Boomer-to-Zoomer spectrum from Kurt Warner to Robert Griffin III weighed in on this irresistible morsel of offseason gossip, with opinions ranging from In my day, we watched film uphill in the snow to and from Pop Warner practice to NFL coaches are obligated to tuck rookie quarterbacks in and check under the bed for monsters. Williams later clarified that he knew how to watch film, but needed to learn how to be “more efficient” and find “ways to pick up things better.” Which sounded like he didn’t know how to watch film.
Johnson is now stuck in the role of Mrs. Puff teaching Spongebob how to drive. Per Albert Breer, one of Johnson’s first tasks was improving Williams’s “body language,” which apparently means crawling off the turf after sacks with more enthusiasm. Johnson also spent OTAs assuring fans that Williams not only absolutely loves the Bears but is a 100 percent conscientious and receptive pupil, while Williams reassured fans that his conversations with dad about donning a puddy nose and glasses and playing for the Arlington Renegades were mere “thoughts.” Sounds like things are going great.
What's new that sucks: The Bears spent their top two draft picks on even more playmakers for Williams, because last year’s hand-picked corps of DJ Moore, Rome Odunze, Keenan Allen, Cole Kmet, and D’Andre Swift—enough firepower to turn Patrick Mahomes into a galactic overlord—did not provide quite enough scaffolding for success.
Tight end Colston Loveland showed up at the scouting combine with his arm in a sling after shoulder surgery, so there’s nowhere to go but up. Loveland ranked below Penn State sensation Tyler Warren on most draft boards but was drafted before him, and the Bears already have a fine youngish tight end in Kmet. But Johnson used two-tight end formations very effectively in Detroit, where he also had the NFL’s best offensive line, a veteran quarterback with outstanding “body language,” a boss who could motivate players to skydive without a parachute, etc., etc.
Second-round wide receiver Luther Burden III, meanwhile, drew comparisons to Deebo Samuel because he generates tons of yards after the catch and is also already a coach’s cluster headache waiting to happen. Burden committed three unsportsmanlike conduct fouls at Mizzou in 2024, and he could be seen dramatically sulking on the sideline after a touchdown was nullified against Texas A&M. He also has a penchant for William Shatner-worthy soccer-style death flops in an effort to draw penalties. Draftniks loved Burden, because draftniks: A) love receivers who rip away from the arm tackles of 18-year-olds; and B) ignore glaring evidence that a prospect has already charted a course for the Bugnuts Receiver Divaverse.
The Bears also upgraded their offensive line. We could debate the relative charms of newcomers C Drew Dalman (from the Falcons, that crucible of excellence), G Jonah Jackson (injured, then benched, for the Rams in 2024) and G Joe Thuney (last seen as one of the Walmart greeters welcoming Eagles defenders into the Chiefs backfield and asking them if they found Mahomes OK). Instead, we’ll point out that the Bears have been upgrading their offensive line and receiver corps for years, with each year’s crop of newcomers replacing an outgoing group of first-round picks and plum free-agent acquisitions. Nothing works because the Bears keep drafting quarterbacks who need their food chewed for them, and pair them with grouchy coaches eager to push the plunger and start over.
What has always sucked: The Bears have famously never produced a 4,000-yard passing season in franchise history. In fact, they’re going in the opposite direction. Williams’s 3,541-yard season in 2024 was their only 3,000-yard season of the 2020s, a decade in which the schedule has been lengthened from 16 to 17 games. When the schedule inevitably expands to 18 games, the Bears may switch to the triple option for the sake of tradition.
(And yes, the city of Chicago produced a pope before it produced a 4,000-yard quarterback. Get ready for a year of cringe pope jokes. The Monday Night Football graphics department surely already has a cartoon of Johnson in a papal tiara queued up for our viewing pleasure. We’ll be begging for excommunication before November.)
With the passing of Halas McCaskey, new principal owner George McCaskey has stopped giving off Seymour Skinner energy and started giving off Norman Bates energy. The Bears have not had an original idea since team patriarch George Halas hired former team legend Mike Ditka as head coach in 1982. Which, come to think of it, also wasn’t really an original idea.
General Manager Ryan Poles, who stole the Panthers’ lunchbox in a 2023 pre-draft trade and has been eating from it ever since, survived last year’s administrative purge. Poles poisoned the well for Justin Fields by refusing to sign or draft any receivers to help him in 2022—Velus Jones, Poles’s third-round pick that year, is currently trying to make the Saints as a running back/return man/tax writeoff—then drafted Williams without making him perform a captcha to prove that he was a real quarterback. (Check all the boxes that contain linebackers.)
Poles, who replaced the similarly inept Ryan Pace in a Dick York/Dick Sargent-type arrangement, signed an extension through 2029 in early July. The new contract will inevitably complicate the power struggle with Johnson that is currently scheduled for late December.
What might not suck: The Bears have one of the NFL’s best secondaries: CB Jaylon Johnson, CB Tyrique Stevenson, CB Kyler Gordon, CB Terrell Smith, S Jaquan Brisker and S Kevin Byard. The solid pass defense held opponents to 18, 19 (twice), 20, 23 (the Lions!) and even six points in various 2024 games which the Bears lost by scores of 19–13, 18–15, 19–3 (to the Patriots), 23–20, and 6–3 (to the Seahawks).
Johnson’s mastermind credentials are indeed impressive. Williams displayed resilience during a 2024 season when his father must have been tempted to smuggle him over the border to the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Poles has amassed almost an overabundance of playmakers. With a pass defense capable of dissuading opponents from firing up the turbochargers, even a little offensive improvement could go a long way.
Unfortunately, the Bears have been saying things like this since sweatbands were stylish.
HEAR IT FROM BEARS FANS!
Jeff:
I want to believe the mild hype of "oh this team is the one to watch, they're going to take the leap" - what leap? We won 5 games last year, our franchise-saving quarterback has a father who can't help going full LaVar Ball about how unexcited his son was to be a Bear, and our wunderkind coach Ben Johnson (honestly, amazed we got him) also a name and a general physical appearance that looks like it was generated by AI.
We're going to go 8-9 and probably miss the playoffs losing to the Packers on the last game of the season, and we'll probably be happy with that result. Bury us in Arlington Park.
Sam:
One of my buddies is a commanders season ticket holder so I flew out for the game last year. He got EXTREMELY drunk day of and at the end of the game was making such a scene about the officiating that I was slightly worried he was going to get kicked out so to calm him down as the Commanders got the ball back for their last possession I said “hey you know what we’ve played like complete ass today if they hit a Hail Mary here we deserve it” So you know what? Hand up that one’s on me. (PS we did play like ass what kind of dipshit calls a handoff with a backup lineman after barely moving to ball all game fuck Shane Waldron with a divvy scooter)
Mike:
Here we are after another seven months of "we won the offseason" for like the third year in a row. It never seems to translate into actual success though, but it's refreshing that it really seems like for the first time in my life, the front office seems to have a plan. I have zero faith that it's a good plan.
Last year, I shelled out for tickets for my cousin and I to attend Week 1 against an absolute tire-fire of a Titans team. We flew in from Salt Lake and Phoenix respectively, and after a weekend of enjoying the city of Chicago for the first time, we walked to Soldier Field for the first time in our lives. And walked. And walked. And walked. There is no easy way to get to that stadium. When Williams came out of the tunnel during the intros, I don't think I've ever been in a building that was louder. That's how much we meathead fans were pinning on that kid. When the first half gun sounded and the Bears were down 17-3 and our shiny new QB had been beaten to within an inch of his life, I'd never been in a place that was quieter other than one man crying out one section over, "Why did they do this to us AGAIN!"
Because that's who the Bears are. There's nobody better at selling its fans hope and then revealing that that hope is covered in shit.
Brian:
I've lived in Chicagoland eight years now. At one point you could get tickets front row behind the goalpost for under $200. I have yet to go to a game. Getting into Chicago is like a year long NASCAR street race, except every driver is Cartman.
The Bears fanbase is a paradox of swearing the team will return to '80s glory once any change happens - the owners, the stadium, the QB, the kicker, the Styrofoam cooler giveaway sponsored by Jewel Osco - while also simultaneously latching onto any poor, stagnant tradition just because it means Chicago. Malort? Perhaps there's no better analogy than being proud to drink a terrible drink and force everyone who visits to do the same. Red star tattoos? She's telling you her GTA Wanted Level.
That being said, I'm seriously considering going when they play the Browns in Week 15. Not only will these loose Canadian coins on my desk get me in, but having an entire section to myself will make it easier for the EMTs to find me when I recreate the ending of The Shining.
Soldier Field has RC Cola.
Ricky:
Because the chorus to our fight song is the same thing my doctor tells me to do when he's knuckles deep up my asshole during my annual physical. Honestly, a rectal exam is almost too on the nose as a metaphor for being a fan of this team.
William:
With Virginia and her small purse gone, it is only a matter to time before the remaining failson McCaskeys are forced to sell the team to an awful billionaire or VC group, win a Championship, and get the city and state to sign off on publicly funding a new stadium before everybody sobers up from the parade. Most Chicago fans would think $600M is a fair price to finally get one over on the Packers.
Ryan:
When the Commanders Hail Mary play happened, I didn't yell. I didn't get angry. I didn't cry. I just got up off the couch and walked into the kitchen and ate dinner, completely unsurprised that this garbage barge of a franchise was on the shit end of the most unlikely play of the year. Fuck Tyrique Stevenson.
Outshined_One:
The Bears finally have a promising new coach who can help their young QB develop into a true blue superstar! We all know this young QB has a ton of athletic talent, and he sometimes flashes greatness, but he just needs the right system and the right supporting cast to succeed. Plus the new coach was a successful coordinator for his last team, surely he won't turn out to be a complete weirdo who shouldn't be placed on some sort of watch list!
Wait, I said the same thing in 2018? And in 2022? Fuck me.
Joey:
I am friends with a close friend of the Chicago Bears strength coach, who swears up and down that Caleb Williams will never be the answer because of his mentality, and that Tyson Bagent deserves a chance to start. We can't even have nice things when we have nice things.
Don:
I look forward to the Bears being crushed by their own hype in 2025. They’ll likely finish the season with a record Jeff Fisher would love: either 8-9 or if they’re truly lucky, 9-8.
Do you know how many times the Bears have finished the season with a record above .500 since their last Super Bowl appearance in 2006? FOUR. Yes, only four times in 18 seasons—2008, 2010, 2012, 2018. Given the hype train around Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams, you’d think the team has already established itself as playoff-bound and then some, but let’s get a grip here. A finish above .500 is well out of the ordinary for the Bears, and quite frankly is a realistic goal for this season. Establish a foundation to build upon for 2026 and beyond.
Having said that, do you know what is another realistic goal for 2025? Turning Aaron Rodgers into a Klein Bottle in Week 12, when the Bears host Pittsburgh.
Jack:
Dismal record aside, da Bears are holding prime real estate in the northwestern suburbs hostage as a bargaining chip to weasel billions out of the city and state for a new stadium no one needs. Part of me hopes they move so that the city is spared the traffic and my parents can cash in on increased property values out in the burbs, but I know that the whiniest Chicagoans would find a way to blame "losing the Bears" on the teachers union.
Nick:
When my friends and I went to Minnesota for the Bears-Vikings game last year, I participated in a fan appreciation Q&A with a Bears PR rep. A few weeks later, I get a thank-you gift in the mail. It included a Bears grill spatula (cool!) and a Dunkin Donuts gift card (free money!). Next time I picked up an iced coffee and a vanilla longjohn, I handed the gift card to the cashier... who told me I still owed $1.09.
Look, I appreciate a $5 gift card, I really do. But it's still funny as hell that a $6.4 billion organization continues to "toss nickels around like manhole covers."
Also, Virginia McCaskey killed her brother to ensure she inherited the team. Look it up.
Matt:
You’re going to get about 800 of these pointing out that Chicago got a pope before the Bears got a 4000 yard passer, but the Bears and Catholic Church aren’t that different.
Both are sclerotic, bloated institutions powered by blind faith and outdated traditions. Both worship the saints of the past, require weekly disappointments on Sunday, and are lead by geriatric doofuses. And somehow both engender unquestioning devotion, but a miracle isn’t coming.
Jon:
When the St. Louis Rams left for LA ten years ago, I needed to find a new team. I live in Illinois so the Bears seemed like a logical choice even though most people in my area jumped on the Chiefs bandwagon. What a joy it’s been watching the Chiefs blow through the league while I spend every Sunday wondering if the Bears will score an offensive touchdown. I decided to cement my misery last season and convinced my wife and 2 kids to attend a game at Solider Field as part of a family trip to Chicago. The game we attended was a Thursday night toxic sludge festival. The Bears lost 6-3 to the Seahawks, it was rainy the whole time, and I’m shocked my family talked to me for the rest of the weekend. At least I got to see them at their shitty old stadium before moving to their shitty new suburban stadium. This year the Bears might be good but instead will find a way to lose three games in horrific fashion, get blown out by a team with a losing record, beat someone they shouldn’t, and up with the Jeff Fisher 7-10 special.
Fuck last year’s Hard Knocks for convincing me that Matt Eberflus’s new haircut would somehow make him a competent coach.
Fuck having to spend the next 10 years seeing the highlight of the Jayden McDaniels Hail Mary pass.
And most of fuck me for choosing in step in this pile of dog shit when I had a choice of any team in the league.
Troy:
I genuinely was doubting if she was capable of death. Maybe that will break the curse denying this team a competent quarterback, but I'm not holding my breath.
My nephew (age 7) is a die hard Bears fan and my brother in law encouraging that is the only thing we've had a heated argument about.
Austin:
Because I’m in my 30s now and the best Bears team of my lifetime started Rex Grossman at QB. Because they just extended the GM who hired Matt Eberflus in the first place. Because the Bears are the only franchise that is too stupid to figure out how to extort tax payer money to build a new stadium. Because when I read that Caleb and his dad would do literally anything to avoid the Bears, all I could think was, “yeah that makes sense”.
Aaron Rodgers simultaneously falling off a cliff and revealing himself as such a detestable prick that no team wants him is the biggest win I’ve had in years.
Nick:
I bought a cheap custom Bears t-shirt shortly before the 2024 season. Bears logo on the front, number 18 on the back. I chose to put the word “ICON” in the nameplate. There’s no turning back for me now. I am beyond the Dead Man’s Curve of being a Bears fan.
Every snap Caleb took last year looked like when your opponent picked your play in Tecmo Bowl. It isn’t his fault that he’ll be pressed through a fine mesh sieve AGAIN this year, but Bears fans will blame it on his nail polish anyway.The fact that he ever explored trying to avoid being drafted by the Bears proves that he has the highest IQ of any quarterback they’ve had in my lifetime (44 years).
Ben Johnson will be an astonishing failure, and that won’t be his fault either.
Michael:
I once got so mad during a Bears game that I was kicked off my sand volleyball team as a result.
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