Last week, I wrote a somewhat scathing review of the Bears' come-from-behind win against the Packers in the Wild Card round of the playoffs. While most people were celebrating, I was critical. All year long, the Bears have been coasting on luck. Last week, I said that I suspect that luck to run out, and that I didn't believe that the Bears were actually good enough to compete with the likes of the Rams, 49ers, or Seahawks. Well, now I get to say "I told you so."

But I'm not annoyed that the Bears finally came crashing back down to Earth. I'm annoyed that I have to say "I told you so" about something else.

2 years ago, I wrote about my frustrations with 4th down decision-making. Put simply, I think that NFL coaches are far too willing to go for it on 4th down, and that they should kick field goals more often.

I bring this up because, in my opinion, it was the Bears' decision to go for it on 4th down multiple times last night that lost them the game. 3 times in the first half, the Bears were faced with 4th and short within easy field goal range. All 3 times, they went for it. Only once did they succeed. That success did lead to a touchdown.

But if the Bears had attempted all 3 field goals instead (taking back the touchdown they scored off the one successful conversion) (and assuming Cairo Santos made the kicks), then they would have scored a total of 9 points instead of 7. Had that been the case, Cole Khmet's miracle hail mary catch in the end zone with mere seconds left on the game clock would have put the Bears up by 2 points in regulation. Instead, it only tied the game, and the Bears lost in overtime.

Photo credit: AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh.

Cole Khmet's last-minute hail mary catch should have won the game, not tied it.

The most frustrating of these failed conversions was the first one, on the Bears' opening drive. The score was still 0-0, and the Bears had the opportunity to put the first points on the board. At this point, you have no idea how the game is going to go, and whether it's going to be a shoot-out or a defensive struggle. As such, I strongly feel that teams should just take the points. Get on the board. Let your defense play with a lead -- albeit a small lead.

The Bears got the head coach that they wanted, and which (I think) all of us Bears fans expected them to hire. Within a day or 2 of the Lions losing to the Washington Commanders in the divisional round of the playoffs, former Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson signed on to be the Bears' next head coach. This is something that, honestly, should have happened last year. Matt Eberflus' coaching tenure was a train wreck, and as soon as the Bears decided they were going to move on from Justin Fields and draft Caleb Williams, they should have also parted ways with Eberflus. Instead, they repeated the same strategy that has already failed for them twice before: of drafting a new quarterback, who's rookie development would be stunted by a lame duck coaching staff.

Such unbelievably incompetent management!

So are Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams doomed to repeat the failures of John Fox and Mitch Trubisky, along with Matt Nagy and Justin Fields? Obviously, only time will tell.

There are a few positive signs here. Johnson successfully rehabilitated Jered Goff's career after Goff was traded to Detroit. So he does have that history of turning things around for a struggling quarterback. Goff has been fantastic as a Lion (except for that final playoff game). He's been highly efficient, and has been good at protecting the football.

Photo credit: Photo/Paul Sancya / AP.

Ben Johnson has already shown that he can help rehabilitate a struggling quarterback.

A lot of Goff's success can be traced to Johnson's success as a schemer and play-caller. So Bears fans should also have some confidence that the Bears' play-calling, blocking, and route concepts will be much more competent in 2025 and beyond. We hopefully won't see all the schematic failures that we have seen the past few years.

The Bears finally did it! They finally fired Matt Eberflus. This is the first time in the Bears' hundred-plus year history that they fired a head coach during a season. If you ask me, this is long overdue.

Even back in the preseason and early in the regular season, when the Bears were looking pretty good, I was skeptical of the coaching staff. I was surprised that Eberflus survived last year. Back when everyone thought the Bears were tanking the 2023 in order to draft Caleb Williams, I was insistent that tanking and retaining Eberflus would be a bad idea. I'm not going to re-hash that entire rant, but the core thesis is that it is impossible to tell if a team or coaching staff is tanking on purpose, or if they are just bad. In the case of Eberflus and his coaching staff, it looks like they were just bad.

I hate to say this, but I told you so!

Matt Eberflus was fired after multiple controversial losses.

This firing comes on the heels of a heartbreaking loss to the Lions on Thanksgiving day, in which the Bears mis-managed the clock at the end of the game and forfeited their opportunity to stop the clock and kick a game-tying field goal in the final seconds. This capped a 6-game loosing streak in which the Bears gave up a Hail Mary on the final play against the Commanders, and also mis-managed the clock in other games, with an opportunity to tie or win.

The Chicago Bears have seen a turnaround the past few weeks. The Bears started the regular season 1-2, and looked like they might be repeating the same disastrous mistakes that they made with both Mitch Trubisky and Justin Fields. I have not liked Matt Eberflus or his coaching staff these past couple years, and I was hoping that the Bears would look for a new head coach. I feared that when the Bears drafted Caleb Williams, they had drafted a potentially elite quarterback in the last gasp of a lame duck year for the coaching staff. I feared that coaching staff would stunt Williams' development with poor coaching and play-calling. Williams did not look very impressive in the preseason (the backups sure did, though), and he struggled the first few weeks behind awful pass protection, an un-reliable rushing game, and play-calling that failed to put him in situations in which he could succeed and build confidence.

Those days feel like ancient history though. The Bears have now won 3 straight, going into their bye week. Not only are they winning, but they are winning decisively, and looking like a well-rounded powerhouse. Williams is in the top 15 in both passing yards and passing TD. The offense is scoring over 30 points per game in its wins, and the defense is giving up an average of less than 17 points per game. At the same time, they have scores on special teams, and rookie punter Tory Taylor is looking like an instant all-pro.

Photo credit: total apex sports.

Punter Tory Taylor is making life very easy for the defense.

Things seem to be on track.

But "seem" might be the operative word there. I still have concerns.

Those 3 wins came against some of the worst teams in the NFL this year. All 4 of the teams the Bears beat have 1 win each through 6 weeks. In fact, the only 1-win teams that the Bears haven't beat yet are the Patriots and Browns (thought the Bears will have a shot at the Patriots next month). The Texans are the only good team that the Bears have played so far, and they lost a frustrating match against a mediocre Colts team. The good news is that the Bears were at least competitive in those 2 losses, losing both games by a single score.

In any case, the Bears have shown that they can beat up on bad teams, but they have yet to show that they can truly win against Playoff-caliber teams. And that's worrisome, because all of the NFC North is looking like potential playoff teams this year! They will get a chance to prove themselves after their bye, when they will go on the road to play the NFC East-leading Washington Commanders. Then they will have a couple more cupcake games against the Cardinals and Patriots, before starting a brutal gauntlet of a schedule that includes all of their NFC North divisional games, as well as road matchups against the 49ers and a home game against the Seahawks. The Vikings (in particular) are one of the surprise success stories of the league so far, as they remain unbeaten through 6 weeks (5 wins because they already had their bye).

The Bears could very well go into divisional play with a record of 6-3 (or even 7-2), but they will need to at least split those divisional games, and win at least 1 of the non-divisional games against the 49ers or Seahawks, if they want a shot at a wildcard playoff berth. And honestly, I'm not yet convinced that they can do that.

Well, I don't know how the Bears are going to play during the regular season, or if they'll make the playoffs, but it kinda felt like they won the 2024 preseason. The Bears went 4-0 in the preseason, and absolutely dominated all 4 teams they played, including both the Buffalo Bills and the defending NFL champion Chiefs.

The defense was particularly stifling. Watching these preseason games almost looked like watching the '85 Bears' playoff run. Opposing teams simply could not move the ball, and the Bears dominated field position and time of possession.

Unfortunately, going undefeated in the preseason has been a bit of an albatross for NFL teams throughout history. The 2008 Lions and 2017 Browns both went winless in the regular season after having won all 4 of their preseason games. More generally, since 2010, teams that won all their preseason games would not do well in the regular season. Most would have losing records when all was said and done.

On the flipside, no team in this century has won the SuperBowl after failing to win a single preseason game. This does not bode well for the defending champion Chiefs, who lost all their preseason games, including the one against the Bears.

Something that doesn't help the analysis of the Bears' perfect preseason is the fact that the performance of the starters was lukewarm at best. It was really the backups who lit things up. It's hard to judge the Bears' top 2 draft picks because they didn't see a ton of action. Caleb Williams had a few good plays and showed a lot of the improvisational excitement that he was known for at USC. But all those theatrics did not result in many points, as the Bears' starting unit was mostly stagnating in the red zone and kicking field goals.

Rome Odunze almost had a touchdown against the Bengals, if only he'd stayed in-bounds.

There could have been a highlight touchdown between these 2, if Odunze had kept his feet in-bounds for a catch at the back of the endzone after a Caleb William's scramble. In Rome's defense, the sidelines and back lines were not fully painted. Usually, the lines around the perimeter of a football field are thick, solid white lines that are several yards wide. But in the preseason, these lines were hollow, so Rome may have thought he was inside the endzone because he was looking at the exterior line, instead of the interior line. In the regular season, he will hopefully be more aware of where he is on the field.