LANDOVER, Md. — It’s still going to be a while before the Bears are ready to contend, which is disheartening given how brutal the wait already has been since general manager Ryan Poles took over in 2022. In the meantime, new coach Ben Johnson must make the best of a roster that doesn’t quite fit his ideals.
There could be some surprises along the way, but finishing with a winning record feels like the loftiest goal for which they could reasonably aim this season. If they can beat the bad teams and hold their own against the good ones, like the Commanders, that will be a decent start to the Johnson era.
He’s a big part of any solution, of course, and seems to have corrected a few obvious issues from the jump. Quarterback Caleb Williams and the offense have avoided the slow starts that took them out of games throughout last season, he hasn’t appeared to be in over his head on the sideline or at the podium and practices are run with much more insistence on precision than under Matt Eberflus.
Nonetheless, while it’s understandable that the roster needs to be tailored to Johnson, it’s hard to accept that more pieces weren’t in place upon his arrival.
Poles’ group walked into an unusually bad situation in the wake of predecessor Ryan Pace mortgaging future draft picks, overspending and making ill-fated acquisitions, but the Bears still should be further along in their rebuild than this.
After four full offseasons to level things out financially and restock the roster, major issues remain. They’re unsettled at left tackle, the most crucial position on the offensive line. They’ve put substantial resources into the defensive line, but don’t seem to have all the answers there. Running back went virtually unaddressed in the offseason.
And now the Bears are in a new phase of rebuilding after bringing in Johnson, who wouldn’t necessarily have signed off on all those moves. It was telling that they used their first two draft picks on positions that they previously believed they’d solved, taking tight end Colston Loveland 10th and wide receiver Luther Burden in the second round at No. 39 overall.
“We’re still working towards getting all those elements in place,” Johnson said leading up to the game Monday against the Commanders when asked about long-term planning. “It’s rare that a new coach comes in and everything is exactly the way you want it.
“We’ve made tremendous strides towards that as we’ve gone through. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but I’m really encouraged about the direction we’re headed right now.”
With the team this far away from vying for a championship, the Bears were in no position in the offseason to trade future picks for players who could help them win now. Coming off a 5-12 season, that would’ve been delusional.
The same is true seven months later. The ups and downs of the first five games haven’t clarified anything about where the Bears are headed, which isn’t surprising so soon after a coaching change. Regardless of whether they overachieve and make the playoffs, this is a transitional season.
Johnson knows better than anyone what’s missing. He deals with those deficiencies every week in the games. But while he might write up an urgent shopping list, his role in the personnel department mandates that he give priority to big-picture goals.
The Bears need help at running back, defensive end and perhaps other spots approaching the Nov. 4 trade deadline, but even if they get hot over the next few weeks, they can’t even consider sending out 2026 or ’27 draft picks or taking on cumbersome contracts.
“I don’t think those questions come to my head a whole lot when we’re in the season,” he said of balancing immediate and long-term needs. “We’ve got a good roster… so I don’t look into what we don’t have or what we would love to have. That’s not really the thought process this time of year.
“We’ve got what we’ve got and we can win with what we got.”
That belief is legitimate only to an extent, but it’s all Johnson can say at this point.
Even with the Bears’ limitations, though, the schedule sets up for them to stay afloat for a while. Their next four opponents — the Saints, Ravens, Bengals and Giants—are all in crisis and have a combined 6-18 record. The Bears are still a fledgling team themselves, so no game is a breeze, but staying above .500 into late November would be a big step for a franchise that hasn’t kept it together that deep in a season since standing 7-6 in early December in 2019.
The difference is that this team appears to still be rising, albeit incrementally, whereas that one already was sinking under Pace and coach Matt Nagy. It’s too early to tell whether Johnson will be a success, but everything about his approach so far seems sound. The Bears will get a clearer view of his ability once they finish filling in the blanks on their roster.
