‘Good, better, best’ Bears made our year in Chicago sports

The last we saw of the Bears — literally, their most recent play — it was the high point of the year in Chicago sports.

Go on, rack your brain if you must for a better moment than Caleb Williams’ 46-yard pass to DJ Moore to beat the Packers in overtime at Soldier Field. We’ll wait.

The Bears have spent weeks, if not months, on a redemptive trajectory, picking up the slack for most of the city’s other major pro teams and elevating our overall 2025 sports story from second-rate to crackling-good. Nice of ’em, wouldn’t you agree? Thanks, fellas.

The fine work of an 11-4 team has provided more good times and story lines than some of us deserved. Take, for example, the shambolic newspaper writer responsible for perhaps one of the dumbest, most reactionary columns ever published, way back when the Bears had just lost 52-21 to the Lions in Week 2.

“Will the Bears’ NFC North nightmare ever end? Not this season, it won’t,” the headline read online.

Imagine being the imbecile who put those words together.

Said imbecile posited that the Bears might be the worst team in the entire NFL and polished this absolute gem: “Playoffs? No chance. Contending in the division? No chance. We know those things already, just two games in.”

In all fairness, only about 12% of NFL teams that opened 0-2 have made the playoffs since the postseason field was expanded from 10 teams to 12 in 1990. Not only did it seem the odds were too long to beat, but the Bears had just been ravaged by 31 points and, if it’s possible, looked worse than that number indicates in doing so.

It felt like merely the latest contribution to a run of really rough years on our sports scene.

The year began with last season’s Bears riding in on a 10-game losing streak, while the Blackhawks explored the depths of dreadfulness and the Bulls, in keeping with their soul-numbing custom, idled along meaninglessly.

In an uncannily metaphorical March mishap, the metal band Disturbed played at the United Center and so disturbed the joint with a pyrotechnic display, the Bulls’ championship banners were damaged and had to be taken down. Months later, the Bulls had the sense of humor to begin a new season with five straight wins. But seriously, folks, the fun stopped right there.

Also in March, the Sky traded a truckload of draft capital to the Mystics for guard Ariel Atkins, ostensibly transitioning from full-on rebuild to let’s-see-if-we-can’t-be-pretty-good-right-now. Then — hardly Atkins’ fault — they backed up general manager Jeff Pagliocca’s bold move by going 10-34, tying for the worst record in the league. Courtney Vandersloot’s torn ACL didn’t help. Angel Reese’s public complaints about the roster didn’t make anyone feel better. Well, maybe Reese a little.

In May, the Hawks hired coach Jeff Blashill, whom GM Kyle Davidson described as “incredibly smart and talented.” Not to mention humble. Blashill declared off the bat he would “not guess, not hope, but know” on Day One how to take the team to the top. To open the team’s centennial season, Blashill’s Hawks skated to a 10-5-4 record. Now, Connor Bedard is injured and the record at year’s end might be the NHL’s very worst.

The White Sox may or may not be inching toward real progress. Look, don’t even pretend you can tell for sure. But Colson Montgomery finally made it to the big leagues on the Fourth of July and exploded with 21 homers in only 71 games. He even got his first Rate Field dinger off the Cubs’ Shota Imanaga. Then again, who didn’t hit a dinger off Imanaga? The Sox still couldn’t avoid 100 losses for a third straight year — an ignominious franchise first.

The Cubs were much better. The first sign had to be when Pete Crow-Armstrong showed up to spring training with bleached-blond hair with big, blue stars painted on. What did it mean? It meant he’d have six-RBI games seven days apart in May, become the major leagues’ first player to get to 20 homers and 20 steals on the season and start his first All-Star Game in center field. Seiya Suzuki mashed, too. Kyle Tucker raised the bar. Did it all fizzle? Indeed, it did. The Cubs still can’t carry the Brewers’ jocks, crazy as that is.

But who could be bothered to remember any of the bad stuff? Or even the pretty good, but somewhat unsatisfying, Cubs stuff? Because now we have the Bears closing in on an NFC North title, with a chance Sunday in Santa Clara — in their final game of 2025 — to reach 12 wins for only the second time since the Super Bowl season of 2006.

The Bears came back from the Week 2 debacle in Detroit with a four-game winning streak. They lost a game, then ripped off five more wins. There have been last-ditch “Ws” against the Raiders, the Commanders, the Bengals, the Giants, the Vikings, the Steelers. A dominant win against the defending-champion Eagles. Best of all, last Sunday’s walk-off whoopee against their longtime tormentors, the Packers.

Good, better, best — that’s how the Bears’ season has gone, and that’s how they’re bringing a not-so-bad Chicago sports year to a close.

Even an imbecile can appreciate that.