Mere minutes after the Bears’ season ended Sunday night, someone asked Cole Kmet about the team being well-positioned for the future.
The tight end wasn’t ready to go there. To do so would be to disrespect the opportunity the Bears had just tried — and failed — to grasp in their 20-17 overtime loss to the Rams at Soldier Field.
“The work we put in is for this year,” he said. “Not for next year.”
The Bears came within inches — maybe even 72, had they decided to go for two to win the game rather than kick the extra point at the end of regulation — from reaching the NFC championship game for the first time in 15 years. Quarterback Caleb Williams’ miracle touchdown pass to Kmet forced overtime, but his interception led to the Rams’ game-winning field goal. Kmet wasn’t ready to overlook any of what happened Sunday — good or bad — in the name of feeling optimistic for the future.
“You can’t take for granted the opportunities you get in this league — to get to this chance to have an opportunity to go to the NFC championship, and then who knows from there?” he said. “To just think it’s just gonna happen again, it’s very wishful thinking. Very wishful.”
Guard Jonah Jackson had a former coach who used to remind his players that “this might be your only shot.” Sitting at his locker Monday, he admitted that Sunday might have been. There’s never a way to know for sure.
“You don’t ever think that — but that could be the truth,” he said. “We’re going to attack next year with even more edge, hunger to get back to where we just were and go even forward.”
That’s why the Bears need to be aggressive this offseason — not in spite of their bright future, but because of it.
They need an edge rusher to pair with — and possibly outshine — Montez Sweat. They need a long-term answer at left tackle, particularly if Ozzy Trapilo’s knee injury lingers into the start of next season. And they need to settle a safety position that has both Kevin Byard and Jaquan Brisker on the verge of free agency.
A franchise that has been synonymous with defensive toughness can’t simply count on leading the NFL in takeaways again next season. The offense can’t rely on a healthy Caleb Williams playing every meaningful snap of the season for a third consecutive season.
The Bears won the NFC North, but they also went 2-4 against the Lions, Vikings and Packers. One of those wins came when the Packers couldn’t corral an onside kick.
Those teams, Kmet said, are going to come back hungry next year.
“That’s why it hurts when you have the opportunity now,” Kmet said, “and you just come up a little short.”
Williams rallied for seven fourth-quarter comebacks this season, a number that is as unparalleled as it is unsustainable. Those comebacks helped the Bears go from worst-to-first in their division — the 20th team to do so in the last 23 years.
The NFL is structured to encourage that sort of movement. After playing a last-place schedule this year, the Bears will play a first-place slate in 2026. They’ll draft 25th, the latest they’ve picked in Round 1 — not counting years when they didn’t have a first-rounder — since 2011.
For every team that rises, another must fall. The Commanders, who played for the NFC title last year, went 5-12 this season. The 49ers, who played for the conference title a year earlier, went 6-11 in 2024.
And then, of course, there are the 2019 Bears. In 2018, first-year head coach Matt Nagy led the Bears to an NFC North title. The next year, after holding a convention in which many of the franchise’s greatest former stars predicted a Super Bowl berth, they went 8-8 and finished third in their own division.
The Bears could be a prime candidate for regression next year — or they could emerge from the offseason even better than they were this season. The point is, there are no guarantees from one season to the next.
“Every year is its own thing,” Williams said.
It’s climbing a new mountain — one that only gets steeper with the weight of expectations.
“It starts all over again,” Kmet said. “It’s 0-0. It’s going to be twice as hard to get to this point.”
So much so that coach Ben Johnson wasn’t ready to entertain 2026 yet.
“Next season is next season,” he said Sunday night. “It’s a whole different group, it’s a whole different chapter. We’ll have to write a whole brand-new story. … I wish I could say that this is momentum from Year 1, we’ll take it — [but] it doesn’t work that way. …
“Honestly, I don’t even want to talk about next year yet. There will be a time and a place for it. But we’re still hurting.”
Want more insights? Join Working Title - our career elevating newsletter and get the future of work delivered weekly.
