If you still had doubts about whether Ben Johnson could bring the juice to the Chicago Bears, yesterday should’ve laid them to rest.
Because whatever you think of his team through nine games this season,
one thing is clear: they’re all-in. His signature breakdown with his players after the game was all the confirmation needed.
A cynic might ask, “Why celebrate this much after…that?” After all, the Bears just barely beat a bad Giants team that lost its solid rookie quarterback mid-game and needed their very last offensive possession to do it. Why celebrate a win over the corpse of Russell Wilson and a squad that might be headed for a last-place finish?
Because it’s not about style points. It’s about the strength of will.
A second-year quarterback with all the pressure in the world on him to be elite, whose offense let him down with six dropped passes, refusing to throw in the towel until he’d dragged his team to the winning points.
A defense that, despite injuries and obvious talent limitations, somehow manages to come up with that one play that flips the game in crunch time.
A rookie head coach still finding his bearings in the NFL who has managed to instill in his team the irrational confidence that they can and will win every one-score game they’re in.
I told a Giants fan friend of mine that I met at the NFL Combine that there’s always a road to an embarrassing loss for the Chicago Bears, even when you’re playing a team you should beat. In this one, it looked for a while like this week’s choking method would be literally letting the game slip through their fingers.
But that’s where those of us who have come to expect the worst are apparently wrong.
That’s what the Bears used to do. And failing with the game on the line is something all the past versions of Bears quarterbacks would’ve done.
Not these Bears, though.
And whatever imperfections he may have, Caleb Williams has now proven five times, including four times in his nine starts this season, that he can take this team down the field and win a game. The Bears are winning these close games because he makes it happen, which is something this team hasn’t been able to say since Jay Cutler was here.
Because it doesn’t matter that this team isn’t the best version of itself yet, that their flaws are apparent seemingly every single week.
When it’s winning time, they don’t care. They just do what it takes.
At 6-3, it is officially time to say the Chicago Bears are a good football team. Because that’s what their record says they are, regardless of who they’ve played.
And they’re fighting hard to get better every week, even in the midst of the growing pains.
Which should make Bears fans extremely excited for whatever the “best” version of this team ends up becoming. Because it could be special.
