Bears HC Ben Johnson will be looking to deliver on two more promises as the calendar flips to December with five weeks left
It’s time to start playing your best football.
The Chicago Bears quietly have become one of the hottest teams in football over the last few weeks and are fresh off their biggest win of the season after dominating the defending Super Bowl champs.
During the month of November, the Bears went a perfect 5-0 and have now won nine of their last 10 games. Entering Week 14, the Bears hold the No. 1 seed in the NFC and control their destiny toward having a first-round bye in the playoffs.
Yet, no one is satisfied with how the season has gone so far and with the calendar turning over to December, the Bears have been preparing for this critical stretch all season long.
Bears always hoped to play their best football in December amid a 9-3 start
“We’re going to be playing our best football in December” Bears head coach Ben Johnson said all the way back in September following the team’s Week 2 loss to the Detroit Lions. “I know that to be certain. We’re just in a race right now to get better in a hurry, and the faster we get there, the wins will start coming and we’ll be just fine.”
Johnson’s words proved to be true. Since the bye week, the Bears started making strides of improvement on both sides of the ball and the wins started coming. At the same time, this team still hasn’t played their best football yet and this is the month the Bears need to achieve that level.
“Nobody remembers what you do in October and September and even this early part of November. People remember what you do in November, December, and January,” Bears veteran safety Kevin Byard explained. “That’s what we want to be remembered by. Because if you want to be remembered as a great player in this league or a great player in this city, it’s about what we do from here on now, it’s not about what we’ve done before.”
The Bears’ upcoming stretch in December is a daunting one, kicking off with a road trip to take on the Green Bay Packers and then another date against the division rival 13 days later. That short stretch, not to overlook the Cleveland Browns sandwiched between in Week 15, gives Johnson the opportunity to deliver on another promise.
On the day he was hired by the Bears back in January, Johnson boastfully claimed that he enjoyed beating Packers head coach Matt LaFleur twice a year. The Packers didn’t forget those words and will surely bring it back up in team meetings going into Sunday’s game.
This is the time of year the Bears need to buckle up and keep the foot on the gas. The margin of error is razor thin in the NFC and every team is looking up at Chicago waiting on them to slip up.
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