Chicago Bears youth movement faces training camp test

The Chicago Bears are a team on the rise.

The Monsters of the Midway put the league on notice in 2025 by winning the NFC North, which is possibly the toughest division in football, winning a Wild Card game against their hated rivals, and pushing the Los Angeles Rams to the absolute brink in the Divisional Round of the NFL Playoffs.

In their first year under head coach Ben Johnson, the team found an offensive identity and ranked sixth in the league in total yards per game and third in rushing yards per game. The nearly 26 points per game they scored were good enough for 9th in the NFL.

But that was last season, and the NFL is a "what-have-you-done-for-me-lately" league. The successes of last season officially end when rookies and quarterbacks report to training camp at Halas Hall on July 25.

Here are three questions for the 2026 season that the Bears can start to answer in training camp.

Will the Bears beat the Packers in 2026?

The bad news is that the Bears are 3-17 against the Green Bay Packers over the past 10 seasons. The good news is that two of those three wins have come the last two times they’ve faced Green Bay.

The Bears seemed to exorcise plenty of demons in their Week 16 overtime victory over the Packers. It was the Bears’ first win against their nemesis since they clinched the NFC North with a win over them in 2018.

The team followed up with another win at Soldier Field two weeks later in the Wild Card round of the playoffs.

Ben Johnson, a veteran of the NFC North divisional wars, has a particular disdain for the Packers. Unlike the Bears, the Detroit Lions have had a lot of success against the Packers, sweeping them in 2022 and 2024, both years when Ben Johnson was the offensive coordinator.

So if there is anyone who isn’t scared of the Pack, it’s him. Johnson famously said "F*** the Packers" during his introductory press conference when the Bears hired him.

He has said he "enjoyed beating (Packers coach) Matt LaFleur twice a year," and the two have not seemed able to get the post-game head coach handshake quite right yet after three tries.

Whether the team continues that run of success could come down to the work the team puts in during the summer months.

Caleb Williams has been a bit inconsistent against the Packers.

His 54% completion percentage in the regular season loss was only slightly worse than his 56% completion percentage in the overtime win. But while Williams only completed 24 of his 48 pass attempts against Green Bay in the playoffs, completion percentage isn’t everything.

His 361 yards through the air and 2 touchdowns were enough to overcome the two picks he threw in the victory. Which leads to the next biggest training camp question.

Will Caleb Williams take the next step?

Ben Johnson has been a godsend for Caleb Williams, honing his game in ways the coaches from his rookie season could not.

Williams finished the season just shy of 4,000 yards with 27 touchdowns and only 7 interceptions. His yards gained per pass attempt, yards gained per completion, passer rating and QBR all made significant jumps in his second year.

But perhaps the biggest improvement for the third-year signal-caller made came in the number of sacks he took.

Williams took a league-leading 68 sacks in 2024. He cut that number down to 24 in 2025, according to Pro Football Reference.

Ben Johnson’s offense thrives at playing ahead of the sticks, so the 466 yards Williams lost to sacks in 2024 were untenable in 2025. He cut that number down to 165 yards last season.

But those were the positives. The most glaring negative from his freshman to sophomore season was Williams’ completion percentage. Williams only completed 58% of his passes last season. This was good for dead last among the league's 32 starters.

Williams has never been a high completion percentage quarterback, but very few, if any, NFL QBs get very far while completing fewer than 60% of their passes.

Caleb Williams has the superhuman, game-saving stuff down already; once he learns to take what the defense gives him instead of trying to push the ball down the field so much, the sky is literally the limit for the former number one overall pick.

Will a young, untested receiving corps be enough for the Bears?

Chicago Bears GM Ryan Poles has a clear vision for team building.

Spend draft capital on offense, spend real capital on defense.

The Bears have made splash signings on defense in recent years, opening up their checkbooks to sign defensive end Montez Sweat (whom they acquired in a trade) to a 4-year $98 million deal, and re-signing homegrown cornerback Jaylon Johnson to a 4-year $76 million contract, among other deals.

Guard Joe Thuney is the only offensive player in the top-5 in terms of payroll for the team this year, and that's by design.

Poles has used the draft to stock his offense's most important pieces, including the trio of wide receivers that Caleb Williams will be leaning on this season.

The team spent a first-round pick on third-year receiver Rome Odunze, a second-rounder on Luther Burden last season and a third-rounder on rookie Zavion Thomas. Those three together will have to make up for the loss of DJ Moore, who was traded to the Buffalo Bills in the offseason.

While Moore had a down season last year, his career-low 682 yards still led all Bears receivers, and his 13.6 yards per reception will certainly be missed.

DJ Moore drew coverage and made life easier for Odunze and Burden last season. Now the Bears need Rome Odunze to step up after he also had a disappointing year, as his receptions and yards declined from his rookie to sophomore campaigns in 2025.

Suddenly, he is a veteran leader in a wide receiver room undergoing a youth movement, largely unproven, on a team that needs its offense to be just as potent as it was last season.

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