The Chicago Bears’ 2025–26 season was supposed to feel like a beginning.
Instead, as the offseason ramps up, it’s starting to feel like an unfinished sentence.
In his first year as head coach, Ben Johnson did what many believed was unrealistic. He led the Bears to an 11–6 regular-season record, delivered their first NFC North title in years, and oversaw a playoff victory over their most bitter rival, the Green Bay Packers. For a franchise starved for relevance, it felt transformative.
And yet, as the Super Bowl approaches, the aftertaste of the season has grown complicated.
Chicago’s divisional-round loss to the Los Angeles Rams — a 20–17 overtime defeat — didn’t just end a playoff run. It exposed how thin the margin still is between “arrival” and “ascension.” Johnson acknowledged that pain immediately after the game.
“Our guys fought the entire way,” he said. “Disappointing result. Our guys are feeling it right now.”
That feeling hasn’t fully faded.
This week, Johnson was officially named a finalist for NFL Coach of the Year — an honor that should have cemented the season as a triumph. Instead, it introduced a new layer of tension.
The competition is unforgiving: Liam Coen, Mike Macdonald, Kyle Shanahan, and Mike Vrabel — all coaches whose teams either reached the Super Bowl or were built for sustained dominance.
Suddenly, Johnson’s historic year risks being framed not as a breakthrough, but as the one that came up just short in every way that mattered most.
Awards don’t define legacies. But they shape narratives.
For Johnson, the nomination underscores an uncomfortable truth: the Bears did almost everything right, yet still find themselves on the outside looking in. No Super Bowl. No conference championship. And potentially no hardware to validate what was accomplished.
It’s the kind of near-miss that lingers.
Chicago fans are right to be optimistic. The roster is young. The quarterback situation has stabilized. The culture, for the first time in a long time, feels aligned. But expectations have shifted — and with them, the pressure.
Johnson understands that better than anyone.
“This will be hopefully a feeling in this locker room that we won’t forget,” he said, “and we’ll be able to use it as fuel going forward.”
Fuel cuts both ways.
It can drive growth, or it can quietly magnify frustration. Around the league, other young coaches are already being crowned. Mike Macdonald has Seattle in the Super Bowl. Mike Vrabel resurrected New England in one season. Liam Coen flipped Jacksonville faster than expected.
Against that backdrop, Johnson’s year — once considered miraculous — now sits in a crowded field of success stories.
And that’s the bad news.
Not because the Bears failed. But because they succeeded just enough to change the standard. From here on out, Chicago won’t be measured by progress. They’ll be measured by outcomes.
Titles. Banners. Rings.
As the offseason begins, Johnson and the Bears aren’t licking wounds. They’re carrying something heavier: the awareness that the window is open — and that next year, “almost” won’t be enough.
The question now isn’t whether Ben Johnson is the right coach.
It’s whether Chicago is ready for what comes next when expectations stop being theoretical and start being demanded.
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