Shirts off, everybody!
Yes, you. And you, and you and …
Or maybe we should just leave that tremendously unifying gesture to Ben Johnson and the Bears, who exploded in howling, unbridled celebration Friday when their intense rookie coach bared his chest in the visitors’ locker room after a 24-15 upset of the Super Bowl champion Eagles in Philadelphia. Yes, come to think of it, this is a far better way to go.
What a time to be a Bear.
What a team, these Bears.
What a win this was — but nearly wasn’t, or so it seemed.
Admit it: When quarterback Caleb Williams threw a screen pass right into the hands of linebacker Jalyx Hunt in the third quarter, setting up the Eagles at the Bears’ 36-yard line with the Bears in front 10-9, you thought something along the lines of, “So this is where it all falls apart.” Or perhaps more on the nose, “I knew it was too good to be true.”
But then, with the Eagles one yard from a first-and-goal, Bears cornerback Nahshon Wright swooped in and pulled off the unthinkable: He single-handedly stopped the most unstoppable play in football — the champs’ Tush Push — by darting in from quarterback Jalen Hurts’ left and ripping the football from Hurts’ powerful arms for the biggest turnover in a season full of them by the NFL’s most opportunistic defense.
On came the Bears’ offense, and running back Kyle Monangai immediately took a first-down handoff, blasted through a gaping hole and rumbled 31 yards, punctuated by the sort of violent, pad-popping finish that says, “Not today, suckers.”
With that, the Bears were back to making a resounding statement with a rushing attack that gobbled up 281 yards, 255 of them by Monangai and D’Andre Swift, leaving nothing for any critic or cynic to look down their nose at about a first-place team with five wins in a row, nine in its last 10 games and a 9-3 record with five regular-season games to go.
In case anybody out there missed the declaration, the Bears are in this NFC hunt as much as any team.
Beating the Eagles wasn’t an accident. It was an all-out grass-kicking.
It was in your face, down your throats, do something to stop it if you can and, oh, by the way, guess what? You damn well can’t.
“What are you going to say now?” safety Jaquan Brisker shouted into a camera as he skipped down a hall to the locker room.
The Bears keep telling us they’re on to something here. They keep pounding the rock, leaving less on Williams’ shoulders. They keep leading the league in “big plays” — runs of at least 10 yards and passes of at least 20 — and in offensive yards per game overall. Uncannily, they keep robbing their opponents of the football, now with 26 takeaways and a plus-17 margin, cartoonish numbers not seen from a Bears team since the 1985 Super Bowl season.
No, it isn’t ’85 again. These Bears aren’t a runaway train. Then again, would long-suffering Bears fans recognize one if they saw it?
“They ran for however many yards, and we didn’t run for many yards,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni lamented in his postgame press conference. “We lost the turnover battle. We lost the explosive-play battle. All those things are going to dictate the win and loss.”
These things aren’t complicated. To repeat: a grass-kicking.
4th game in a row with a touchdown for Kyle Monangai 🔥
— Rutgers Football 🪓 (@RFootball) November 28, 2025
“We’re very pleased with where we’re at,” Johnson said.
Gee, you think?
A year after firing coach Matt Eberflus on Black Friday, the Bears turned the touchdown-favorite Eagles black-and-blue in their first regular-season Friday game since 1966. That one was a 31-17 loss to the Rams in which quarterback Rudy Bukich went 10-for-33 for 97 yards and a 27.2 passer rating, since we brought it up. This one was just a tad better.
It was reasonable coming in for anyone to be skeptical about the Bears given their soft schedule. The last time they faced an opponent with an elite reputation, at Detroit in Week 2, they were toyed with and humiliated 52-21. Just two weeks ago, the Eagles suffocated the Lions, holding them to 74 yards on the ground. And now this. Who’s to say the Bears don’t deserve to be in the conversation with these big boppers, not to mention the Packers and the Rams?
Playing on Prime Video, the Bears looked the part of a team that’s ready for prime time. It might be hard for some of us to say that out loud, with a game upcoming against the Packers at Lambeau Field and with home dates still to come against the Packers and the Lions. Not to mention with so much negative Bears history. Reflexively, the temptation is to take even the best and most convincing win of the season with a grain, or maybe a pound, of salt.
But tell that to the Eagles and to their fans, who were booing in the first quarter and filed out of Lincoln Financial Field early.
Bears fans — shirts or skins — are going to want to stick it out a while longer.
