Messages of (semi) sympathy began to arrive almost immediately after Minnesota’s comeback win over the Bears on Monday night.
OMG so sorry terrible loss but also lol.
DUDE. You ok? Not sure how Bears fans do it.
I cannot imagine. We doing ok?
Sorry it went down like that and #skol.
The wellness checks kept arriving through Tuesday afternoon. I appreciated both the sincere and insincere messages alike (while also trying not to dwell on the fact that so many friends actually felt the need to check on my well-being following a Chicago loss). Having people think about you with kindness is certainly not a bad thing.
As I mentioned to pretty much everyone who reached out, Monday’s loss to Minnesota — while terrible — would not have even made the list of last year’s five worst Bears losses. It’s not in the same tier as the Washington Hail Mary game, or the Thanksgiving debacle, or the 6-3 loss to Seattle on the day after Christmas. In fact, it’s probably only the third worst loss this team has had to the Vikings over the past 11 months. What may have seemed like an extraordinary loss to the rest of you was simply another standard-issue national embarrassment island game for a Bears fan.
Honestly, by the standards of a typical Caleb Williams start, it was like a ray of sunshine. Chicago managed to score 24 points, of which 17 were provided by the offense. For an entire series to open the game, the Bears appeared to have a fully functional passing game. This is a dim sort of progress.
Of course Ben Johnson’s team also committed a dozen penalties — including multiple false starts in their own building — and the interior offensive line was turnstiling, just like last season. Also, they still have the only kicker in professional football who cannot reliably drill 50-yard field goals. And, as ever, when the opposing defense sped up Williams, he flipped the switch to frenetic mode and wild things happened. Usually bad things, though not exclusively.
Anyway, yes, last year’s problems are currently this year’s problems, which is not ideal. But the Chicago Bears were never gonna be rebuilt in a day, or a month, or a summer. This team does not merely have surface-level dysfunction. Instead, they are dysfunctional at a cellular level. The task ahead of Coach Johnson is … well, there are basically a thousand different tasks, none of them simple. We have definitely not yet seen the worst loss of 2025.
In any case, hey, I’m fine. This is fine. Thanks for asking.