Bears’ Week 2 loss to the Lions puts Ben Johnson’s first season in Chicago on a path no team has been able to battle back from
The road ahead just got a lot tougher for Chicago.
Before we get started, the sky isn’t falling in Chicago. And yes, it’s far too early to begin thinking about playoff hopes after the second game of the season. But things look grim for this team after what we saw over the first two weeks.
Following the Chicago Bears’ loss in Week 2 to the Detroit Lions, the Bears are now a part of an early season trend that’s been unforgiving for other teams in previous years.
Bears join exclusive club after 0-2 start against the NFC North
Since the NFL underwent division realignment in 2002, eight NFL teams have started a season 0-2 with both losses in divisional games. On Sunday, Chicago became the ninth such team to do so.
According to ESPN Research, all of those previous eight teams went on to miss the playoffs that season. The most recent teams to suffer such a disastrous start to the season were the 2023 Cincinnati Bengals and the 2023 Carolina Panthers. Cincinnati finished that season 9-8, while Carolina finished 2-15.
It’s not ideal circumstances for sure, but it’s not a definitive fate for Chicago despite the history. The Bengals, for example, lost two of their last three games to end that season, so it’s hard to put missing the playoffs on the 0-2 start to open the season.
Regardless, the 0-2 start and being 0-2 in the NFC North puts Chicago’s season in a big hole for head coach Ben Johnson to lead his team out of in his first year as a head coach.
The way the Bears are losing makes it look even worse. Chicago had a 17-6 lead over the Minnesota Vikings in Week 1 before surrendering 21 points in the fourth quarter. In Week 2, the Bears gave up 52 points and 511 total yards with two turnovers on offense. Not an ideal start to the season at all.
There’s a lot of football left to be played in 2025, and the Bears can easily still find a way to turn this season around. Chicago will face the Dallas Cowboys in Week 3, followed by the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 4, and then will have the benefit of an early bye to reassess how things have gone.
At the same time, this is why expectations needed to be set to a much lower bar in the first season under this new staff. It’s obviously going to take time to build this thing the right way, just like it was for the Lions in the first season under head coach Dan Campbell when they went 3-13-1.
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It’s not a good look.
