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Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles had a feeling this spring, confident that his team is built to last.
Promising young quarterback.
Dynamic head coach.
A connected locker room.
The momentum felt real.
Sure, building on last seasons surprise breakthrough will be difficult.
Coach Ben Johnson has made that crystal clear to everyone inside Halas Hall for months.
But even with the heart-stopping path the Bears took to an NFC North championship and a riveting playoff win over Green Bay last season, Poles is optimistic his crew can navigate the path to sustained success.
Advertisement This is a new year and weve got to get back to work, the Bears GM told The Athletic in March.
But you see this hunger from this young group of guys who want to string year after year after year together.
With an eye on fortifying their roster with conscientious and passionate players, Poles and Johnson believe they have found a catalyst for their future.
You feel the hunger to put the time in to get back to where we were, Poles said.
Its kind of an addiction you sense from these guys.
For a franchise that hasnt been to the playoffs in consecutive seasons in 20 years and hasnt strung together three straight winning seasons since the late 1980s, the difficulty of this climb is well-documented.
A tougher schedule is on tap for 2026.
The division is still loaded.
And the Bears must again find ways to create their own luck to keep the vibes good and to dodge regression.
With training camp beginning later this month, we explore four key questions for the Bears as they look to extend this run.
Will close-game execution carry over? The Bears late-game heroics last season were numerous and exhilarating, evidence of a breakout team playing with dangerous levels of belief under pressure.
Here are just a few examples: - Josh Blackwells blocked field goal in the final seconds to preserve a 25-24 win in Las Vegas in September.
- Nahshon Wrights late fumble recovery and Jake Moodys walk-off field goal for a primetime 25-24 road victory over the Washington Commanders in Week 6.
- Caleb Williams 58-yard rescue touchdown pass to Colston Loveland in the final minute in Cincinnati for a 47-42 win.
- Devin Duvernays 56-yard kickoff return late in Minnesota to set up Cairo Santos walk-off 48-yard field goal in a 19-17 victory.
And, yes, we cant forget those two ridiculous home comeback victories over the rival Green Bay Packers, both coming after the Bears trailed by double digits in the fourth quarter and sealed with stadium-shaking Williams-to-DJ Moore touchdown passes.
The final tally: Seven Bears wins, including the playoffs, after they trailed in the final two minutes.
That wasnt just the best mark in the NFL last season; it was the best this century.
Since 2000, only the Tebowmania Denver Broncos and the 2016 Detroit Lions had more than four such victories, with five each.
Good luck repeating all that, right? Advertisement Still, even with the warning signs that last season could have been an outlier, its worth noting the Bears eight victories in one-score games were accompanied by five such losses.
So maybe Williams doesnt hit a 46-yard overtime bomb TD this season, as he did to Moore in Week 16 to stun Green Bay.
But maybe instead Williams will find Cole Kmet in the end zone on the final snap, as he was unable to do at Lambeau Field two weeks earlier.
Maybe Williams wont rally the Bears from 10 points down in the final six minutes as he did during a November escape against the New York Giants.
But maybe he does hit a game-deciding pass from the 2-yard line, which he was unable to do against the San Francisco 49ers in a Week 17 thriller.
The point is that while Williams and the Bears were frequently spectacular in the clutch last season, they were not perfect.
And their .636 winning percentage in regular-season games decided by seven points or fewer ranked 10th in the NFL.
Perhaps a slight uptick there is still possible? One of the Bears biggest keys to sustaining success will be remaining poised and focused under pressure.
On that front, they should enter 2026 with a surplus of confidence.
In Williams as a late-game killer.
In Johnson as the dialed-in manager.
And in the entire teams ability to meet the biggest moments.
Is takeaway regression inevitable? Reality No.
1: Of the NFL-high 23 interceptions the Bears recorded last season, 19 were made by players no longer on the roster, including seven from league picks leader Kevin Byard, who is now with the New England Patriots.
Reality No.
2: Of the 22 teams that led the league in takeaways between 2006 and 2024 three seasons had co-leaders more than half fell out of the top 10 in that category the following season.
A dozen teams had a dip of at least 10 takeaways the year after leading the NFL.
Advertisement Through that lens, it seems impractical to expect the Bears to repeat their takeaway binge after racking up a league-high 33 in 2025.
And if that number falls significantly, a defense that finished 29th against the run (5.0 yards per attempt) and 29th in pressure rate (31.5) could be vulnerable.
In March, Johnson conceded this much: You do the studies, the analytics, the statistics and all that, and you find that takeaways really is not a sustainable metric.
But without missing a beat, Johnson added this: We still have Al Harris.
In fact, with Harris as the defensive backs coach, forcing turnovers remains central to the defenses mission.
Im obsessed with taking the ball away, Harris said.
Thats our culture here.
Thats super important to me.
And the players feed off that.
Harris has a history of creating takeaway success.
Five players he has coached over his past nine NFL seasons have recorded at least five picks in a season.
That fraternity includes Byard and Wright last season; Trevon Diggs and DaRon Bland (twice) with the Dallas Cowboys; and Marcus Peters (twice) with the Kansas City Chiefs.
In his nine seasons as the head defensive backs coach in Kansas City, Dallas and Chicago, Harris has been part of defenses that have averaged 17 interceptions per season.
He has also helped coach defenses in three organizations that led the NFL in picks the Chiefs in 2016, the Cowboys in 2021 and the Bears last season.
I dont coach Turnovers come in bunches, Harris said.
I dont believe that.
I think this is coached.
Its in your culture.
Its a part of how I preach my message.
One last footnote: the Lovie Smith-era Bears prioritized takeaways and averaged 34 per season, with highs of 44 in 2006 and 2012 and a low of 28 in 2009.
In other words, keeping the takeaway faucet open may not be easy.
But it isnt impossible.
What to make of the Bears injury toll? Last seasons magical run did not come with a clean bill of health.
Of the 23 players listed as starters on offense or defense when the first depth chart of the summer was released, six wound up on injured reserve during the season.
In all, that original group of starters missed a combined 70 regular-season games.
Advertisement There are a multitude of ways to calculate how severely teams are affected by injuries.
In most studies, the 2025 Bears ranked near the middle of the pack.
Analytics expert Aaron Schatz offered an AGL (Adjusted Games Lost) metric that ranked the Bears 17th in time missed by starters or other important players.
Still, the defense was hit particularly hard.
Cornerback Kyler Gordon, for one, missed 14 games and had two separate IR stints while dealing with hamstring, calf and groin injuries.
Cornerback Jaylon Johnson, who started camp on the physically unable to perform list with a groin injury, missed the entire preseason and then the opener, returned for two quarters in Week 2, then wound up aggravating the injury, needing surgery and missing the next two-and-a-half months.
Linebacker T.J.
Edwards had a similar in-and-out experience because of a lingering hamstring problem.
(Edwards missed seven regular-season games, then fractured his fibula against the Packers in the wild-card round.) Dayo Odeyingbo (torn Achilles tendon) and Shemar Turner (ACL tear) each suffered season-ending injuries before Week 10.
On offense, foot injuries kept Rome Odunze out of the final five games of the regular season and affected his performance when he played.
In all, 18 Bears spent time on injured reserve.
With even a slight uptick in injury luck, particularly on defense, the Bears might be positioned for added success.
The teams sports science staff and strength and conditioning leaders must navigate a twisty regular-season schedule.
After playing five of their first six games on Sundays, the Bears have only one promised Sunday-to-Sunday turnaround the rest of the way, with games over the final three months on Monday (Week 8 at Seattle), Thursday (twice), Friday (Christmas vs.
the Packers) and Saturday (Week 15 at Buffalo).
That will test the teams preparation routine and the way players rest and recover during short and long weeks.
Whats next for Caleb Williams? There was a lot to love about Williams second season and his first with Johnson.
The quarterback set a Bears single-season record with 3,942 passing yards, threw 27 touchdown passes (fourth-most in franchise history) and posted an interception rate (1.2) that led the league during the regular season.
His sack rate also plummeted, down to 4.1 percent from 10.8 percent in his rookie season.
Advertisement Perhaps best of all, Williams cemented his Iceman reputation with brilliant playmaking down the stretch of close games while showing pronounced improvement in handling the huddle and the pre-snap operation.
Not bad after enduring a coaching change and later acknowledging that he felt like he was drowning during portions of Johnsons first training camp as coach last summer.
With the way Williams finished 2025, theres reason to believe he could be approaching a production springboard.
Still, a separate pile of evidence illuminates the quarterbacks need to continue improving, with enough to suggest hes not as close as some believe to becoming one of the leagues elite quarterbacks.
Per TruMedia, Williams 58.1 completion percentage last season ranked 32nd.
Johnson has also consistently cited it as a concern.
Williams overall passer rating (90.1) also ranked in the bottom half of the league and, according to TruMedia, his EPA per dropback (.077) ranked 18th.
Furthermore, Williams five postseason interceptions matched the number of picks he threw over the final 13 weeks of the regular season.
(Its important context that three of those playoff interceptions came on fourth downs, when he was intent on putting the ball in play.) Its no wonder the debate about Williams standing in the leagues QB hierarchy and his potential remains so lively.
The range of possibilities still seems wide.
Williams is in a promising position to build on last years success, though, thanks to the development he showed in 2025, his healthy union with Johnson and the demanding goals the team has given him to make this next jump.
Some see MVP potential and right away.
(Williams, per DraftKings, is currently tied with Matthew Stafford with the eighth-best odds to win that award this season.) But he wont have to reach that level for the Bears to continue winning.
Even modest improvement would put the team in a good place.
And with a crop of talented playmakers growing around him Loveland, Odunze and Luther Burden III among them a window appears open for a promising offense to improve on a 2025 season in which it ranked sixth in total yardage.