The thought of a Bears season full of shootouts and three-hour frenzies in which anything can happen is thrilling. It wasn’t that long ago that their games were unwatchable — Anybody remember the 6-3 loss to the Seahawks in 2024? — so a weekly race to 40 points sounds entertaining.
It is not, however, the typical formula to compete for a championship.
The closer the Bears get to their season opener Sunday at the Panthers, the harder it is to envision their defense taking them where they want to go. They have the potential to be an overwhelming offense if quarterback Caleb Williams continues his upward trajectory under coach Ben Johnson, and that side of the ball is loaded with playmakers, but it can’t compensate for what they’re missing defensively.
Being great on one side of the ball and bad on the other usually balances out. It’s the equation to finish around .500.
Over the last four seasons, 14 of the 20 teams that reached the conference championship game had finished in the top of the NFL in total defense during the regular season. The last four Super Bowls were played between teams that finished 11th or higher.
Total defense is just one statistic, but it’s fairly telling: How easy is it for opposing offenses to move the ball on you? Teams that make it tough tend to win.
The Bears proved last season there are exceptions to that logic and reached the divisional round despite finishing 29th in yards allowed. They weren’t very good in the two basic tasks every defense seeks to accomplish, shutting down the run and disrupting opposing quarterbacks, but led the NFL in takeaways and were middle of the pack in red-zone defense.
They also took some heat off their defense by finishing sixth in total offense.
There wasn’t much fuss about allowing 42 points to the Bengals, for example, because the Bears piled up 47. Near the end of the season, though, those deficiencies glared in a 42-38 loss to the 49ers.
It’s a hard way to live, and the Bears know it.
Johnson has mentioned multiple times this offseason that there’s some randomness to takeaways and teams can’t count on getting them. Cornerback Jaylon Johnson said the blueprint can’t be to beat teams 40-35, calling it “unacceptable.”
Yet with everyone at Halas Hall grasping that reality, the Bears made only a halfhearted effort to fix it.
Their only major move in free agency or the trade market was to sign former Seahawks safety Coby Bryant, and that blew up on them when Bryant suffered a potentially season-ending knee injury in training camp. They also invested their first-round draft pick, No. 25 overall, in starting safety Dillon Thieneman.
The goal, they’ve said, is to find improvement from within. Players who haven’t produced somehow will start producing. The defensive coaches somehow will coach better, is if coordinator Dennis Allen and his staff weren’t already staying up late trying to solve those problems.
All of that is why there’s lingering doubt about the Bears nationally.
They’re 15th in odds to win the championship, and the over-under on their win total is 9.5. ESPN’s power rankings have them 12th, behind the Packers and Lions. And for all the whining Jaguars coach Liam Coen did about the NFL’s official website hyping Williams, its panel of voters picked the Bears to miss the playoffs.
The Bears will try to prove everyone wrong with a patchwork starting lineup to begin the season. That requires a lot of hope, and hope is not a plan.
They’ve replaced Bryant with Xavier Woods, a journeyman who was out of the league a month ago. Opposite defensive end Montez Sweat, they’re likely to start Austin Booker, a former fifth-rounder who has six sacks in 27 career games, over pricy 2025 signee Dayo Odeyingbo. With nickel cornerback Kyler Gordon hurt (again), they’re turning to rookie Malik Muhammad, a fourth-rounder who was the 16th player picked at his position and played mostly on the outside in college.
Additionally in the “hope” category, the Bears are banking on defensive tackle Grady Jarrett getting healthier at 33. They dealt fellow tackle Gervon Dexter to the Falcons and believe they’ll get more out of Kentavius Street, who is on his fourth team in five seasons. And they’re still waiting on beleaguered cornerback Tyrique Stevenson to figure it out.
There’s simply too much uncertainty on defense to justify optimism.
While it’s fair to question general manager Ryan Poles’ spending or Allen’s strategy, this problem ultimately lands on Johnson’s desk. Predecessors Matt Eberflus and Matt Nagy showed no ability to problem solve on the side of the ball that wasn’t their specialty, and he must succeed where they failed.
He dreams of breaking the 2013 Broncos’ scoring record of 37.9 points per game and that’s a great ambition, but the asterisk on that team is that it ran into the top-ranked Seahawks defense in the Super Bowl and got destroyed. Truly great teams tend to be strong on both sides of the ball, and those that are good at only one often end up in the dreaded middle.