For over 100 years, the Bears have mostly been reactive, not proactive, lacked QB vision and offensive innovation, chased old-school toughness instead of modern football smarts.

This guy in the building is a lot different than anyone that’s ever even stepped foot in Lake Forest in over 100 years.

As “Who’s Line” host, Drew Carey used to say, “where the rules are made up and the points don’t matter”.  A story without an ending. Literally. The Bears hosted the Miami Dolphins on Sunday afternoon for their first preseason contest of 2025 and under new Head Coach Ben Johnson.  In an aggressive all or nothing finale orchestrated by both Ben Johnson and Dolphins head coach, Mike McDaniel, neither team managed to score, both opting not to attempt a field goal on their their final few possessions. Resulting in a tie, 24-24. After watching Jacksonville Jaguars kicker, Cam Little split the upright on a 70 yard field goal attempt on Saturday night, Ben Johnson elected not to attempt a 56 yard field gaol to take the lead with less than 2 minutes left in the game. I must admit, the overly persistent “go for it” approach, prompted a lazy and manipulated memory based comparison to Johnson’s former mentor, and Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell. It is just and only the preseason, however, the Bears had a few opportunities late in the game to test their young undrafted free agent kicker Jonathan Kim. “NO OVERTIME?” You ask? There is of course another reason that the game resulted in a tie. Nobody cares. Nobody cares enough to see the rest of the story written. Not even the players….especially not the players. Admit it or not, an NFL preseason game, is the only game, in which the parts matter more than the sum. The performance of the individual, provides a lot more implication, than the result of the entire unit. Especially considering the Dolphins decided to play both of their starting units on offense and defense on the first drive of the game, where Ben and company did not.

The first preseason game rarely offers a full picture of what a team will become in Week 1. It's a time for players to get their legs under them, shake off the rust, and start playing competitive football again—albeit in a very "vanilla" version of the playbook. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty to learn, especially from young players trying to earn a spot on the 53-man roster.