Pretend time is over, people.
Most of us have been had, to some degree or another.
The four-game winning streak the Bears took with them to Baltimore for a Week 8 game against the Lamar Jackson-less Ravens wasn’t screaming “Super Bowl,” “division title” or even “playoffs,” necessarily, but it certainly seemed to be hinting at some fairly good things.
Things such as meaningful progress, capable leadership, perhaps even general competence. Things other organizations view as bare minimums, not lofty aspirations. Things many less-bedraggled fan bases take for granted without setting themselves up to be suckers and chumps.
Things that really aren’t special or sexy at all, yet have you met the Chicago Bears?
Alas, we all have. And then we re-met them Sunday as they stumbled, bumbled, crumbled and were thoroughly humbled in a 30-16 defeat at M&T Bank Stadium.
Otherwise known as: Same as it ever was.
“We’re going to get this thing cleaned up,” said first-year coach Ben Johnson, who has no shortage of options for where to start.
The Ravens (2-5) went into this one having scored an average of 32.8 points in four games with Jackson, and an average of 6.5 points in two games without the two-time league MVP. Other than that, who could tell the difference, right?
They went in having been steamrolled for 32.3 points per game on the season, then gave the Bears (4-3) and addled quarterback Caleb Williams — still yet to begin to resemble a No. 1 overall draft pick — half that.
Strictly on the surface, a team on a four-game winning streak showing up as the underdogs against a 1-5 opponent without its superstar engine was almost nonsensical. Unless, a chump realizes only after the fact, those underdogs were the Bears, who have been favored one whole time over their last 15 games, dating back to approximately halfway through last season.
Did the Ravens have to win to have any chance whatsoever of salvaging their season? Sure, you bet they did.
“They were hungry,” Johnson said. “They were determined. And truth be told, I expected a little bit more out of our squad to counter that.”
But here’s the thing about the “desperate Ravens” narrative that pervaded coverage of the game throughout the week and on Sunday: NFL teams tend not to be at death’s door before Halloween unless they — wait for it — aren’t very good. Are we to believe coach John Harbaugh and the Ravens woke up after starting 1-5, glimpsed at their bruises in the mirror and suddenly remembered they cared about winning?
“It was a joyous locker room,” Harbaugh told reporters after the game.
Not to be confused with the miserable one it surely was before the Bears rolled into town.
The Bears didn’t lose because the Ravens wouldn’t let them win. The Bears lost because they’ve yet to meet a penalty they won’t happily commit, their depth is suspect, their celebrated rookie coach is struggling to unlock Williams’ potential and Williams himself can’t be counted on to be his team’s version of Jackson — not yet, probably not any time soon and maybe never.
There are winnable games on the Bears’ schedule from here to Thanksgiving, but any foe seeing “Bears” on its schedule is thinking the same thing — winnable, very winnable.
The Bears started 4-2 last season, too, before reality came for them in the form of a 10-game losing streak. No one on the team believes something so ghastly could befall the Bears two years in a row. It can’t, can it? Nah. But the version of the Bears the Ravens saw — the same-as-it-ever-was Bears — could and would lose to anybody.
The most impressive thing about these Bears going into Sunday was that they led the league in turnover differential at plus-11, had enjoyed four consecutive games with at least three takeaways and were the NFL’s only team since 2009 to have a trio of three-interception games over its first six contests. Against the Ravens, though, it was bupkis on all counts.
Here’s a nugget, probably just a coincidence: The last Bears team with three picks in three of its first six games did it in 1989. That team went from 4-0 to 6-10. Defensively, it couldn’t stop anybody. Overall, it elevated making mistakes of all kinds to an art form. All on Mike Ditka’s watch, too.
Sometimes, a loss seems like just a loss. No big deal. We’ll get ’em next week.
Other times, it’s more than that. The stumbles, the bumbles, they build on themselves.
Are the 2025 Bears above all that? Could be.
But they haven’t proven a thing yet.
