Do I believe the 2025 Chicago Bears are going to be playing in the Super Bowl when this season comes to its inevitable conclusion in February? I do not. This roster has too many weak positions, and too many injuries at positions of strength. But through four games, look at what this team has provided. They opened with a same old, same old versus the Minnesota Vikings, a sharp primetime pin used to pop the balloon of optimism that had been inflated all summer long. They followed that with The Debacle in Detroit, a performance as vile as anything in that Faces of Death VHS I used to watch in Tommy Burns's basement when I was 13. Then, almost out of the clear blue sky, the Bears returned home to deliver their best offensive performance in years and blow out the Dallas Cowboys. They were fun. I smiled. I'd almost forgotten the Bears could make me smile. One blocked field goal later, a season.
The Bears are pretty good. And fun. And interesting. These are all positives. They're not winning a title, but winning titles cannot be the only measure of success in American sport, especially the NFL, a league wherein success is as much predicated upon the sturdiness of your best players' ACLs as it is the accumulation of talent by your front office. The Bears are, what soccer supporters call, a mid-table side. But there's joy to be found in the middle of the table. They're not Liverpool or Arsenal or Manchester City; they are not a club that views a second-place finish as a disappointment. Right now, they are Crystal Palace, with a splash of Spurs, and maybe a drop of Fulham. In 2025, they're going to lose to the top teams and beat the bottom ones. But that's the roadmap to the postseason in the NFL and, along the way, they're going to entertain us.
At the risk of resorting to cliches, fans need to stop missing the (Nottingham) forest for the (tricky) trees. The details, the bits and bobs that seems to drive social media content, are simply not that important right now. Cairo Santos doesn't kick 60-yarders? Who cares? Cole Kmet has a bad afternoon? It's fine. Bad call here, bad call there...look around, the league is littered with bad calls everywhere. The coach has shown real mettle through the first month. The quarterback is deserving of the armband. Some young, budding stars (Gervon Dexter, Rome Odunze) are off to flyers. Keep calm and carry on. Things are objectively pointing in the right direction.
The next seven games don't look anywhere near as difficult as they looked in August. The Commanders, Ravens, and Bengals are banged up. The Giants have turned to a rookie quarterback. The Saints don't have a quarterback. Will Aaron Rodgers still be upright come November? Are the Bears going to win all seven? Of course not. Mid-table sides don't go on seven-game winning streaks, let alone nine. They'll likely frustrate us all and lose a game they should win. Then they'll turn around and thrill us by winning a game they should lose. The rest of 'em will come down to the fourth quarter. Is it likely the Bears are 6-5 or 5-6 when they head to Philadelphia on Black Friday? Absolutely.
That's life in the middle of the table. And for the 2025 Chicago Bears, that's just fine. Hell, it's not only fine, it's hope.
