“We going up, up, up, it’s our moment…”
Any father of a kindergarten-aged-or-older kid, especially a girl, knows what that means. (Then again, so do most people who don’t live under a rock.)
But as the KPop
Demon Hunters find out (spoilers if you haven’t seen it!), the path to that final triumphant moment is anything but a steady upward climb. In fact, the main characters crash out pretty spectacularly before the film’s end.
And good thing for them (sort of): failing the way they all did and facing the proverbial music about each of their past mistakes help them blaze a newer, better trail.
Which is why losses like Sunday’s embarrassing performance against the lowly Baltimore Ravens, sans Lamar Jackson no less, won’t prevent the Bears from eventually sealing the Honmoon—I mean, winning a Super Bowl. Not if Chicago takes the necessary lessons from it.
As I’ve already written, the Bears have shown more mettle in clutch moments than they have in a while, which helped them scrape out victories in a few games they would’ve lost pre-Ben Johnson. So it’s not as if Sunday’s defeat is completely the “same old Bears.” But losing to a team that has been abjectly terrible this season and missing its MVP QB is, once again, not about talent. It’s about execution and will.
The Ravens were desperate. The Bears were not. Baltimore played relatively mistake-free football. Chicago shot itself in the foot multiple times for the second week in a row, including costly intentional grounding penalties and a game-losing pick by Caleb Williams. The Ravens kept the Bears off-balanced offensively even with Tyler Huntley under center, throwing the ball well and mixing in different styles in the run game. The Bears, meanwhile, abandoned the run when they didn’t need to, making them one-dimensional and less effective.
As such, the Bears’ 4-3 record encapsulates this team perfectly: they’re better than they’ve been in a while, but right now is not their moment. Their defense and ground game are legit, but their offense and young QB are not (yet). The result: a perfectly average-to-good team that can hang in there every week but isn’t yet ready for that major leap.
We’re at that stage midway through the season where this squad needs to start running like a more well-oiled machine if we want to take them seriously for 2025. And maybe that’s my problem: after saying I wouldn’t get too invested until the Bears finally got to seven wins, I’m starting to expect too much after seeing the early returns. The potential is there. The product still isn’t…not quite.
As it stands right now, it feels like 2025 simply isn’t the Bears’ moment. Which is fine; another year of removal from the Great Flus Fire of 2024 will likely do wonders for this squad and Williams in particular. His ceiling as a passer remains extremely high, but he still has a lot to learn and unlearn from the past regime.
The point is that these bumps in the road don’t have to make everything fall apart. Bad losses can be lessons. Adversity can make you stronger. This Bears team is flawed, but it’s already more resilient than it’s been for years. You have to start somewhere.
Only in being honest about where and what they are right now can the Bears eventually ascend to something better.
