Did you hear the one about the Bears scoring a touchdown on the first drive of the Ben Johnson era — and on a run by quarterback Caleb Williams, no less, something he didn’t do on any drive in any game all last season?
It had to be a joke. Or urban legend. Or anything else other than the truth. Bears fans don’t get things that nice, do they?
Ah, but it happened Monday at Soldier Field. Williams to paydirt. Bears 7, Vikings 0 right out of the chute. And Johnson? He might as well have hung up his whistle and retired right then and there at 39 years old, already a Bears legend.
That’s a lot of build-up for what ended as a 27-24 Bears defeat. These still are the Bears, don’t you know.
Johnson kept his offense on the field on fourth-and-two from just outside the red zone in the second quarter, and it didn’t work, with Williams misfiring in the direction of wide receiver DJ Moore. His defense bent and broke in crunch time. His team went more than 3½ quarters in between offensive touchdowns and lost a double-digit-point lead.
Johnson did right and wrong, wrong and right, pick an order. This isn’t science. But it is Johnson’s show.
The Bears don’t need him to shed tears, like the Eagles’ Nick Sirianni; be a boy genius, like the Rams’ Sean McVay; remain calm, like the Packers’ Matt LaFleur; radiate optimism, like the Vikings’ Kevin O’Connell; or bite kneecaps, like Dan Campbell, his former boss with the Lions. What they need is for him to take his place among those names — his own way, whatever that is — and eventually to stand eye-to-eye and belong in their company.
Johnson’s biggest step yet in that direction — Game 1 — was a season opener like none before it for a 39-year-old rookie. It neither launched the Bears into the stratosphere nor set them back a generation, but the bandage was ripped off, and we all lived to tell about it. Imagine that.
We want to believe that Johnson is the leader the Bears needed, that his methods will take root and bloom handsomely, that the miasma of mediocrity that long has enveloped this franchise will dissipate at last. But how can we know?
Johnson’s predecessor, Matt Eberflus, won his Bears debut, a 19-10 upset of the 49ers that, in hindsight, probably merits a federal investigation. In the first half of that game, the Bears were outgained 247-68 as QB Justin Fields threw for 19 yards and had a passer rating of 2.8. In the third quarter, trailing 10-0, the Bears ran the ball on a third-and-four and didn’t come close, leading to lusty boos from the home crowd. But then? Fields threw for two second-half touchdowns. Dante Pettis, Equanimeous St. Brown and Khalil Herbert all scored, a who’s-who of ‘‘who?’’ It ended with teammates charging after Fields into a rain-soaked end zone, which they deliriously turned into a slip-and-slide. It was beautiful.
‘‘I’m not surprised,’’ Eberflus declared in victory.
But so went the high point — here and gone, just like that — for the in-over-his-head coach of an absurdly bad team bound for a 10-game losing streak.
Remember Matt Nagy’s first game as the Bears’ coach, in 2018 at Lambeau Field? The Bears led 17-0 at halftime. Nagy and young QB Mitch Trubisky were making perfectly listenable music together. Packers QB Aaron Rodgers had been carted off the field, the victim of a vicious sack by newly acquired pass rusher Khalil Mack. Back in Chicago, statues of a rookie coach were being erected. Too soon? What could go wrong? Rodgers retook the field and threw for three fourth-quarter touchdowns to beat the Bears 24-23.
After that preposterous tease, a Sun-Times story laid the blame on an ‘‘overly cautious’’ coaching staff. Nagy in a nutshell, as it would turn out.
For successful NFL coaches, debuts are meant to be forgotten. Take Mike Ditka’s in 1982, a 17-10 loss to the Lions in Detroit. Walter Payton rushed for a scant 26 yards, a number he had failed to exceed only once in the previous six seasons’ worth of games. QB Bob Avellini was bloodied and knocked out of the game as the offense mustered a pathetic 154 yards.
‘‘What do you want me to tell you, that Detroit is a better football team?’’ Ditka snapped after the game. ‘‘I’m not going to tell you that. They aren’t.’’
It sounds so much better in the retelling, but only because of what Ditka went on to accomplish.
Johnson is here because of Williams. It’s the relationship that means everything. As they go, the Bears will follow. That’s the effect of the modern QB on teams around the league, certainly on all those that count themselves among the Super Bowl contenders.
What it means is winning. If you can’t beat a first-time QB such as the Vikings’ J.J. McCarthy, you’re just killing time.
‘‘All that matters to us is winning the game,’’ Johnson said over the weekend.
Or, as he promised at his introductory news conference: ‘‘The bar has been set higher than it’s ever been set before. … Our mission [is] to win and to win now.’’
Johnson will have his struggles, and they will be on display like never before.
‘‘The good news is this: I am a football coach,’’ he said. ‘‘I will be able to change and adjust accordingly.’’
We’ll be the judges, but not yet. In due time, people, in due time.
