Bears rookie quarterback Caleb Williams was hardly the first player to arrive at Halas Hall with the grand ambition to “create history” and lift the franchise out of its monotonous misery.
Tight end Cole Kmet and cornerback Jaylon Johnson thought they’d spark a resurgence when the Bears drafted them both in the second round in 2020, and they’re already about to be on their third head coach.
Defensive end Montez Sweat and wide receiver DJ Moore got traded to the Bears from perennial losers in the Commanders and Panthers, respectively, and believed — falsely, it turned out — they’d finally see what it’s like to be on the other side. Sweat might’ve been better off staying put given that the Commanders are a win away from clinching a playoff berth.
Linebackers Tremaine Edmunds and T.J. Edwards signed with the Bears as free agents after playing for powerhouses and thought they’d impart vital lessons learned to a team on the rise. Edwards went to the playoffs three times with the Eagles, including a Super Bowl, and Edmunds played in eight playoff games with the Bills, but it might be a while before they get back there.
“I’m so young, and this is the most athletic I’m ever going to be, and it’s disappointing to have your prime years be like this,” cornerback Kyler Gordon told the Sun-Times. “I’m still in good spirits. I’m thankful I’m still here. But definitely disappointed.”
Gordon was part of the initial phase of general manager Ryan Poles’ rebuild as a second-round pick in 2022, and the Bears have lost nearly three out of every four games in his career. Losing is all he’s known — “Literally, that’s it,” he said with a sigh — since reaching the NFL.
“I’ve never been losing like this ever in my life,” he said. “It’s definitely weird.”
As the Bears plunge toward the end of another wasted season at 4-11 with a game against the Seahawks on Thursday and a visit to the Packers to follow, they haven’t had a winning record since winning the NFC North in 2018 under Matt Nagy. In a league geared toward parity, only three teams — the Falcons, Panthers and Jets — have a longer drought.
If the Bears lose out, they’ll finish with the fourth-worst record in franchise history, which spans 105 seasons.
Not only has this been another wasted season for fans, but the Bears are potentially damaging their own players. Williams has pushed through the mental toll of losing more this season than he did in all of college, and Johnson said the accumulation of frustration over his five seasons led to his highly publicized confrontation with former coach Matt Eberflus — “At some point you blow up,” Johnson said — in Detroit last month.
Between the Bears’ active roster and injured reserve, 40 of 65 players have never been on a winning team. Of those who have, the only one to do it with the Bears is injured long snapper Patrick Scales.
“I’m done with the positivity talk when the results aren’t there,” Kmet told the Sun-Times. “I’ve already heard that story, and it doesn’t work. You’ve got to be real about the issues and confront them — and there’s a lot of them, for sure.
“You see tons of teams in the league turn it around after one year. All it takes is a little bit here and there to turn things over. You look across the league and see teams that weren’t good last year and now are in the playoff hunt, and for us it hasn’t happened.”
The liability for the Bears is that this becomes their culture rather than the “awesome” one Eberflus and others have tried to portray.
Sweat described his time with the Commanders as “toxic” because so many people in the building became “kind of OK with losing,” and that’s the problem with the Bears always trying to point out positives in defeat.
“It just doesn’t matter,” Kmet said. “Having that mindset in the locker room is dangerous because it doesn’t lead to a winning mindset. You get satisfied with losses. You’re OK with, ‘Oh, that looked good,’ but we lost.”
The liability for the Bears is that this becomes their culture rather than the “awesome” one Eberflus and others have tried to portray.
Sweat described his time with the Commanders as “toxic” because so many people in the building became “kind of OK with losing,” and that’s the problem with the Bears always trying to point out positives in defeat.
“It just doesn’t matter,” Kmet said. “Having that mindset in the locker room is dangerous because it doesn’t lead to a winning mindset. You get satisfied with losses. You’re OK with, ‘Oh, that looked good,’ but we lost.”
Kmet already has seen signs of the team devolving into an “everybody for themselves” situation amid a nine-game losing streak.
That’s what checking out looks like in the NFL. Most players have too much on the line financially to stop playing hard, but there’s a difference between effort and cohesion. Players are in the building every day listening to coaches who won’t be back next season, and once a game starts slipping away, as they have early for the Bears lately, resilience fades.
This season has long been over, but that effect could linger. Long losing streaks turn into lost seasons, and those turn into lost careers. And the Bears, who went into this season dreaming of the playoffs, look as lost as ever.
