📰 NEWS FLASH: The Bears’ Biggest 2025 Win Could Be the First Thing They Lose in 2026 ⚡.DH

The Chicago Bears spent all of 2025 proving that stability can change everything.

Now, just weeks into the offseason, that stability may already be under threat.

Declan Doyle—last year’s surprise hire and one of the quiet architects behind Chicago’s offensive turnaround—suddenly looks like a man with one foot pointed toward the exit. And what’s unsettling for Bears fans isn’t just the interest from elsewhere. It’s how real it feels.

When the Bears hired Doyle last offseason, he was a 28-year-old tight ends coach from Denver with no playcalling résumé and almost no public profile. The move raised eyebrows. Then the season started—and kept winning.

While head coach Ben Johnson handled playcalling, Doyle was the one building weekly structure, shaping game plans, and helping guide Caleb Williams through a breakout sophomore season that changed the franchise’s trajectory. Inside league circles, that didn’t go unnoticed.

Now, the phone is ringing.

After already withdrawing from Philadelphia’s offensive coordinator search, Doyle has emerged as a serious candidate for the Baltimore Ravens’ open OC role. According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, dialogue between Baltimore and Doyle is ongoing. Chicago Tribune insider Brad Biggs has added an even more unsettling layer: there’s a belief Doyle would likely take the job if it’s offered.

That word—likely—is doing a lot of work.

Biggs later clarified there’s still a “chance” Doyle stays in Chicago for another season. But in NFL terms, “a chance” is not reassurance. It’s a warning.

What makes this moment delicate is context. Doyle has only been in Chicago for one season. One. He hasn’t called plays. He hasn’t dealt with being the public face of an offense when things go wrong. Yet he’s already being viewed as ready to run his own unit—possibly alongside two-time MVP Lamar Jackson.

From Doyle’s perspective, the temptation is obvious. Playcalling authority. A proven superstar quarterback. A direct path toward a head coaching job if things go right.

But there’s another side to this story—one that feels quieter, heavier, and more consequential.

In Chicago, Doyle is protected. Ben Johnson absorbs the media pressure. Mistakes are framed as collective growth. The spotlight stays soft. In Baltimore, that insulation disappears overnight. If the offense stalls, the scrutiny lands squarely on the youngest coordinator in the league.

And history isn’t kind to rushed ascents.

One failed stop—one offense that doesn’t click—can stall a coaching career for years. Staying under Johnson’s umbrella for one more season would allow Doyle to sharpen his voice, deepen his understanding, and step into his own system on firmer ground.

That’s why Bears fans are uneasy. Not angry. Uneasy.

Because this isn’t about ego or disloyalty. It’s about timing. And right now, the timing feels off—just early enough to hurt, just late enough to matter.

Chicago finally built something coherent. An offense that made sense. A quarterback who trusted the structure around him. Losing Doyle wouldn’t break that overnight—but it would remove a layer of continuity that mattered more than most realized in real time.

If Doyle leaves, Bears fans will wish him well. They’ll understand the opportunity.

But they’ll also quietly wonder what might have happened if he’d stayed one more year—if the table he helped set was only the beginning, not the prelude to goodbye.

Sometimes, the scariest offseason moves aren’t the ones that happen loudly.

They’re the ones that almost happen… and still change everything.