CHICAGO -- Game 1 of the Ben Johnson era was supposed to be different for the Chicago Bears, but a sense of déjà vu crept over the nervous crowd at Soldier Field on Monday night.
For the fourth time in the past four seasons, the Bears entered the fourth quarter with a double-digit lead and lost, this time by a 27-24 count to the Minnesota Vikings. How quickly Chicago let a 17-6 lead morph into a 10-point deficit late in its season opener was both confounding and predictable.
Penalties -- 12 of them for 127 yards -- created negative momentum that not even the best play on Johnson's call sheet could overcome. Quarterback Caleb Williams was accurate (13-of-16 in the first half) until he wasn't. His 29.4% off-target percent and -13.2% completion percentage over expected were last among 32 quarterbacks in Week 1.
Both factored into a key NFC North loss, and now the pressure is on to even the record against another tough division foe when the Bears travel to the Detroit Lions (0-1) on Sunday (1 p.m. E.T.). The Lions are 5.5-point favorites, according to ESPN BET.
If the Bears want to make the playoffs, starting 0-2 vs. division opponents is not a forgiving path. Since division realignment in 2002, eight teams started a season 0-2 with both losses in divisional games, and none of those teams recovered to make the playoffs, according to ESPN Research.
The Bears will need to play better than they did in these five specific moments to avoid that ominous start.
An incomplete fourth-down pass to an open DJ Moore
Chicago held a 7-3 lead when it began its third possession of the game. Williams and the offense were still buzzing from an opening-drive touchdown despite their second drive ending in a punt.
At the start of the second quarter, Williams hit receiver DJ Moore for a 30-yard completion to the Vikings' 31, but that momentum was quickly stunted by two false start penalties (one on Moore, one on right guard Jonah Jackson). Nonetheless, the Bears found themselves just outside of the red zone six plays later with a chance to build a double-digit lead with under nine minutes to play in the half.
Johnson was part of one of the most aggressive fourth-down offenses in the NFL during three seasons as the Lions' offensive coordinator. Detroit went for it on fourth down 33 times in 2024, a trend that Johnson carried into preseason games as Chicago looked to build its identity.
After calling a timeout, which Johnson said was due to him not getting the call in quickly enough, Williams and the offense went back on the field on fourth-and-3 from Minnesota's 24-yard line. With a clean pocket and time to throw, Williams missed Moore over the middle, and the Bears turned the ball over on downs.
"Wide open," Williams said. "Moved the backer, came back, missed the same spot, same route. Like I said, it's frustrating, something you practice on throughout the whole week, something that I'll be better with, something you have to hit in those moments.
"I got to go back and watch it honestly. I think I set too far in front of it and tried to lead him. Led him a little bit too far."
Added Johnson: "We felt good about that call. Caleb, we talked about it this afternoon; that's one of the few he would like to have back"
Chicago could have opted for about a 41-yard field goal, but ESPN Analytics narrowly supported Johnson's decision to go for it.
A failed challenge
Johnson threw his first challenge flag with some gusto in the third quarter, but it's a decision that ended up being costly.
With Minnesota driving from its own 23-yard line on first down with 7:14 in the third quarter and the Bears leading 17-6, Bears linebacker Noah Sewell dislodged a ball from the Vikings' T.J. Hockenson, but it was unclear whether the tight end was down by contact. Johnson wanted the refs to overturn the play and put his offense on the field with a chance to score its first touchdown of the second half.
But the ruling on the field was upheld, and the Bears lost a timeout they needed late in the game.
"I've got to do a better job listening to the guys up top," Johnson said. "I get influenced a little bit for the first time with the people around me and I've just got to stay true to the process."
A penalty, grounding and a 'stale' 49 seconds in the 3rd
Three straight plays set up a decisive turning point for Chicago. The Bears were once again knocking on the door of the red zone with 49 seconds to play in the third quarter when right tackle Darnell Wright was flagged on a questionable holding call. After the offense moved back 10 yards to the Minnesota 34-yard line, Williams missed tight end Cole Kmet over the middle of the field. The operation (clean pocket, time to throw) was similar to the one when Williams missed Moore in the second quarter.
Williams was then flagged for intentional grounding, which backed the Bears up another 10 yards. The quarterback said he was trying to throw the ball away and needed to be more cognizant of knowing where the line of scrimmage is.
"When it rains it pours sometimes and a lot of times when things are stale, all it takes is one player to make a play and it just shoots a shock of electricity through the entire team," Johnson said. "And likewise, once one bad thing happens, if you're not careful, then that also can be contagious as well and catch fire, and that's what happens.
"Unfortunate, because we were in a good position to score points, at least a field goal there, and then we ended up backing it up and made it a very difficult field goal attempt, so that was costly."
Not sending the final kickoff through the end zone
After Williams connected with Rome Odunze for a touchdown to put the Bears behind by three ahead of the two-minute warning, Johnson said the plan was for Cairo Santos to boot the final kickoff out of the back of the end zone. This would have kept 2:02 on the clock and allowed the Bears to use the two-minute warning as a pseudo timeout.
That didn't happen. Vikings returner Ty Chandler fielded Santos' kick seven yards deep in the end zone and ran it out to the 26-yard line after some initial hesitation. The play took seven seconds off the clock.
"In hindsight, I should've kicked it out of bounds," Johnson said.
Deliberately kicking the ball out of bounds would have given Minnesota the ball at the 40 and wouldn't have started the clock.
A critical late-game management error had more to do with the time on the clock (and the timeout the Bears did not have due to their lost challenge) than Minnesota's field position. The Vikings got the ball with 1:55 left and ran down the clock.
With one timeout, the Bears didn't get the ball back until only nine seconds remained.
"We felt like if we would have kicked it out of the end zone, gotten the three-and-out, we'd have gotten the ball back with about 56 seconds," Johnson said.