Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson is letting his players know that there is no longer any room for errors like the ones that cost them in Week 18’s loss.
The Bears had a failure to launch on offense for much of their 19-16 loss to the Detroit Lions in their regular-season finale, punting or turning the ball over on each of their first five drives before finding it in themselves to score 16 points in the fourth quarter.
They also had just 107 yards of total offense through the first three quarters, something that had Johnson “fired up” in the postgame with the NFL playoffs coming up next.
“We’re quickly transitioning,” Johnson said in January 4’s postgame. “We’re locked in. The stakes are a lot higher here going forward. We can’t afford to have a phase — one of our three phases — play like we did today, so we’re going to have to pick it up. And like I said, I get fired up just thinking about it right now, and I know our guys are, too.”
He also clarified: “Yeah, in particular, I was not pleased with the offense today.”
Slow Starts Have Become Problem for Bears Offense
The Bears became one of the most surprising stories of the 2025 NFL season during Johnson’s first regular season as head coach, winning 11 games after starting 0-2 and seizing the division crown in the NFC North for the first time since the 2018 season.
For all of Johnson’s offensive ingenuity, though, the Bears are still struggling to find much consistency as an offense after putting 17 regular-season games behind them.
The long droughts, like the one that plagued them against the Lions in Week 18, have not been uncommon for the Bears lately. They had a similarly ineffective start against the Green Bay Packers in Week 16’s win, scoring three points in the first three quarters. And while their loss to San Francisco became a shootout, they began with two punts.
“We can’t dig ourselves in a hole like that,” Johnson said after the loss to the Lions. “I was disappointed with the offense as a whole. I let those guys know that, and we’ll be better for it. We’ll address it, we’ll get those things cleaned up, and we’ll be better for it.”
Bears Offense Finished Among NFL’s Best in 2025
Fortunately for the Bears, there are reasons to think they can pull themselves out of their slow-start habits and right the ship before hosting the Packers at Soldier Field in the wild-card round of the 2025 NFL playoffs at 8 p.m. ET next Saturday, January 10.
For starters, the Bears closed out the 2025 regular season as one of the NFL’s most productive offenses, finishing with the sixth-most total yards (369.2) and ninth-most points (25.9) per game. Their rushing offense bloomed into a particular strength with D’Andre Swift and rookie Kyle Monangai, averaging a third-most 144.5 yards per game.
The Bears have also shown that they can go blow-for-blow with some of the best teams in the NFC. They defeated the No. 3-seeded Philadelphia Eagles on Black Friday, 24-15, using a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns to seal the deal. They also traded shots with the San Francisco 49ers in Week 17 before falling just short in the 42-38 thriller.
While it is never easy playing the same opponent three times in the same season, the Bears have an offense capable of powering them to victory over the Packers.
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