Week 2 of the NFL delivered another outstanding weekend of football, but the offense was much harder to find for most teams. Unfortunately, the Chicago Bears were one of those teams, putting up just three points over 60 minutes of football. Despite a final score of 9-3 not going their way, all eyes are on the health of quarterback Caleb Williams, who left in the fourth quarter what appeared to be a serious hamstring injury. At (1-1) and (0-1) within the division, how they fare over the next few weeks
(or maybe more) will determine how competitive they can be in November and December. For more on a disastrous Sunday and how to move forward, let’s dive into our weekly postgame Bears Takes.
1. Although head coach Ben Johnson was noncommittal during his postgame presser, Monday’s MRI results for Caleb Williams might dictate how serious of a contender the Bears can be moving forward this season. The early reports are promising, though.
Even with a strong performance from the defense on Sunday, it was fair to say that the Bears’ ceiling was going to be dictated by how well they were able to settle in after a rough Week 1 against the Carolina Panthers. With Williams out for the foreseeable future, the road back to the playoffs became that much harder. According to NBC Sports’ Mike Florio, there’s optimism that Williams suffered a Grade 1 sprain, which would keep him out only a few weeks.
Outside of Florio, both Johnson and the top insiders have echoed the same information: Williams will have an MRI on Monday to determine the severity of his hamstring injury. Given how bad it looked in real time, anything short of season-ending would feel like a big “win” for the long term. That said, anything that avoids injured reserve should keep the Bears in the playoff race.
For what it’s worth, the Seahawks are in a very similar position with Sam Darnold leaving Week 1 with a glute injury. They are also trying to keep their heads above water, but the initial thought is that Darnold will return before Williams. Sunday’s loss (which we’ll touch on more later) was tough enough, but it’s worth keeping in mind that navigating this at 2-0 with a divisional win is a lot easier than what they are currently facing.
To muddy the waters even more, this will be the first time that Johnson will be calling plays relying on a backup quarterback. The offense will need to change moving forward, but relying on their run game will be key to finding offensive success. For now, we’ll wait for a more concrete timeline and hope it’s on the shorter end of everyone’s feared timeline.
2. Even before Williams’ injury, the offense was getting their brains beat out by Vikings’ defensive coordinator Brian Flores. Like we pounded home last week, overreacting to Week 1 rarely works out well. Plenty of other teams struggled around the league to follow up their season-opening performances.
All week, we heard about the battle between Johnson and Flores. For outside observers, I’m sure it’s a great chess match to watch twice a year, but for Bears fans, it hasn’t been overly fun since Johnson came over from Detroit. Despite their 59-point performance last week, the offense struggled all day to move the ball. Even when they were in position to score, it backfired every time except for their first-quarter field goal.
Williams had one of his worst games in quite some time, but he was far from the only disappointment on Sunday. The run game struggled to get going consistently. For all the explosive plays they had last week, many more runs went for less than two yards in their home opener.
More concerning, their receivers weren’t getting open, and the offensive line wasn’t holding up in pass protection against the blitz. To be fair, Flores blitzed over 70% of the time, but even so, this offense has proven it can succeed against that approach in the past. The offensive line is down two starters from last season, but even so, they looked disjointed for most of the game.
Despite all their issues, they still had multiple chances to put points on the board and simply couldn’t. The goal-line fumble from D’Andre Swift felt like a back-breaker in the moment, but the blocked field goal felt like a week-long issue in the making. Rookie long snapper Beau Gardner has shown a tendency to snap the ball high, but the blocking off the edges was shaky last weekend against the Panthers, too.
While these are the types of games that feel like they are simply impossible, Johnson and this offense will now be tasked with getting back on track against another tough defense on a national stage next Monday night. Figuring out the penalties will be key, but their execution in “scoring position” must also vastly improve. Now they’ll be doing that with a backup quarterback under center.
3. The defense was far from perfect, but if you had told anyone earlier in the week that they gave up just nine points and no touchdowns, everyone would have assumed the Bears won in a blowout.
There aren’t going to be many “pretty” performances from this defensive group, but this was about as good a day as anyone should realistically ask for in 2026. Allowing an aging Aaron Jones to go for 105 yards on 23 carries isn’t ideal, but allowing just 127 total passing yards, three sacks, and no touchdowns should be enough for almost any team to win a game.
That said, maybe we shouldn’t be as surprised. After all, Carson Wentz has been responsible for handing some ugly losses to the Bears. Before Sunday, the last time he started a game and beat the Bears was when the Bears couldn’t overcome a 12-point defensive effort, in which they had multiple cracks inside the five on Thursday night football.
Regardless of the Brock Osweiler-type black magic, the defense played more than well enough to come out with a victory on Sunday. Still, it didn’t happen thanks to some very uncharacteristic struggles from the offense. On the plus side, their performance should give fans hope that they won’t set bad records and that being closer to league-average isn’t out of the question. If we are being honest, their best shot at staying afloat might be playing as close to league-average as possible, with Williams expected to be on the shelf for a while.
4. For years, we’ve heard how good of a backup Tyson Bagent is. With Williams out for the foreseeable future, we’ll see if he can keep the Bears in the mix. It’s also worth noting that this will be Johnson’s first time navigating these waters, too.
Simply put, the Bears’ immediate playoff hopes (even heading into Week 3) will ride on how much Johnson can get out of his backup quarterback. The team has loved him since he came in as an undrafted free agent from Shepherd. He’s survived through two head coaches and is just a little over a year removed from signing a two-year extension.
Regardless of what anyone wants to believe, the difference between Williams and Bagent is very different. While Bagent has some mobility in his game, the stark difference in arm strength will be extremely noticeable. That doesn’t mean Bagent can’t succeed. In fact, Johnson’s vote of confidence in him should give Bears fans plenty of hope that with some modifications to the offense, they can still do more than enough to win games.
I expect the offense will become more of a “quick strike” unit that relies on quick, decisive reads and, of course, a strong run game. That might help the offensive line get into a better rhythm, but the big-play aspects of this unit might be less consistent. Think more of what Johnson did in Detroit with Goff as a better example.
How long Williams is out will also matter. Initial speculation (from Twitter doctors) puts Williams’ return-to-play timeframe in the three-to-six-week window. Assuming the middle point of the target, it would leave three-to-four games for Bagent to cover. Here’s how that schedule looks:
Vs Eagles (2-0)
Vs Jets (1-1)
At Packers (1-1)
At Falcons (0-2)
If that goes further into the six-to-eight week timeframe, here’s how the next four games would look:
Vs Patriots (1-1)
At Seahawks (2-0)
Vs Buccaneers (0-2)
Vs Saints (1-1)
Going .500 might cut it over four games (if Williams is out that long); anything more will likely require a winning record. Can Bagent and the Bears keep their heads above water while they wait for the franchise quarterback to return? Without mincing words, it’ll dictate how successful their 2026 season will be.
5a. NFC North Lookaround: The Detroit Lions were run out of Highmark Stadium on Thursday Night Football, the Green Bay Packers broke their six-game losing streak, and the Vikings stand alone in first place following Sunday’s win at Soldier Field.
The NFC North helped kick off the first Thursday Night Football game of the season, and unfortunately for the Lions, it did not go well… At all. Disregard the 41-31 score (if you didn’t get a chance to watch) because the game was never close. The Buffalo Bills jumped out to a 21-0 lead before the Lions were able to catch their breath. Despite a 10-point margin when looking at the final score, Detroit’s inability to stop the Bills’ offense (two punts in nine drives) put their offense in a position where they were consistently fighting from behind all night. Through two games, it’s clear the Lions’ defense is an issue, as they’ve given up 71 points and over 900 total yards through two games. The talent is there, and the schedule should be advantageous, but they’ve got plenty to work through over the next month-plus if they plan on competing for a playoff spot in December and beyond.
After blowing another fourth-quarter lead in Minnesota that led to quite the turbulent week in Green Bay, the Packers were back at it on Sunday afternoon against the upstart Jets, who were looking for their first 2-0 start since 2015. Yes, you read that right- 2015. Todd Bowles was the head coach and Ryan Fitzpatrick was the starting quarterback. Despite leading for the majority of the game, the Jets’ offense stalled in the fourth quarter and could not get things going again in overtime. For the Packers, their six-game losing streak going back to last year is over. With a favorable matchup on a short week against the Atlanta Falcons, the Packers appear to be back on track in a wide-open division.
It wasn’t pretty, and despite two straight divisional victories to open up the season, the Vikings will be thrilled to welcome back quarterback Kyler Murray, assuming he clears concussion protocol ahead of Week 3. It wasn’t pretty on Sunday, but in typical Minnesota fashion, they found ways to keep the Bears out of the end zone and do just enough offensively to come away with the big road victory. Despite many picking them to finish last in the division, me included, they are pacing the NFC North and have a great head start.
Here are the standings after Week 2:
(2-0) Minnesota Vikings
(1-1) Detroit Lions
(1-1) Chicago Bears
(1-1) Green Bay Packers
5b. Week 3 Look Ahead: A Monday Night Football rematch with the Philadelphia Eagles, where they’ll look to atone for their Black Friday loss last year, and it’ll likely be against Bagent.
Despite some personnel shakeup this offseason, the Eagles are off to a 2-0 start, even if they didn’t look great in either game. That said, their defense is still very good, and Bears fans should assume that defensive coordinator Vic Fangio is going to have plenty of confusing looks for Bagent starting his first game in four seasons.
So far, the Eagles appear to be benefiting from two poor opponents. While the defense has done its job, something still feels missing from the offense. Quarterback Jalen Hurts has been OK, but he turned the ball over twice against the Titans, and if not for a last-minute touchdown, they’d be heading into Chicago at (1-1).
Because of the quarterback discrepancy, the Eagles will be favored (as of Sunday night, it’s 4.5 points), but the Bears can win if they clean up many of their mistakes from Sunday. While this won’t be as big of a game for the Eagles considering their 2-0 start, a win on Monday night for the Bears would not only help out their conference record but also get them one game closer to getting their starting quarterback back in the mix.
