Worst Chicago Bears fears from offseason and preseason realized

1. Offensive line trouble

During the offseason, Johnson was asked about how long it would take for the offensive line to come together as a group and start blocking efficiently. The answer sent people who have no patience into a panic.
"My experience has been when you get a new group together, it could take up to half the season before they really start to mesh and come together," Johnson said.
Where's a ledge when you need one?

Besides Caleb Williams scrambling, the Bears running game accounted for 61 yards. They moved no one.
The running game keyed Johnson's offensive success. It was a basis for the second-half Lions turnaround in 2022 when he was a first-year Lions coordinator. But they ran for 756 yards in their first four games.
Sure, the Bears switched out their middle three players on the offensive line, but the Lions team Johnson took over had only two members of the same offensive line that they finished with in 2021 and one of them was playing a different position.

Johnson might actually be right about this half a season thing with the line even with an all-world guard like Joe Thuney on the line.
No one can blame anything on him or the coaching staff. Everyone was warned.
Come back and check in November, and that's a long time with a lot of football to wait through.

2. Caleb Williams reps

When Caleb Williams had errant passing at times last year, especially on deeper throws, everyone was told he needs reps or repetitions—play repetitions.
That was the old coaching staff, though, and everyone agreed they didn't know anything.
Now Bears fans are seeing repetition, all right, but it's repeating the same mistakes and not just repeating plays. Williams has the same consistencies for the same reasons and is being coached by people who supposedly know what they're doing.

Williams is 28th in adjusted completion percentage according to Pro Football Focus.

Time to worry even more.

3. Soft tissue injuries

Why so many soft tissue injuries, especially on defense?
It's most likely they are random occurrences but then again there is this: The defense is playing a new scheme based on man-to-man pass coverage.

These are defensive backs used to extensive zone emphasis for years in Chicago, and in many cases acquired for their skill at this. Now they're doing something entirely different and you wonder if, at least this year, they will have trouble adjusting physically to the different demands shadowing a receiver requires. No longer is the basis just watching the QB and reacting to it.

They need to quickly react to where the receiver is going and with that required suddenness and also the extra physical demands on conditioning, you have to wonder how long it will be before they can adjust.

It's a theory. They need to prove it wrong.

4. Penalties

They were getting it as preseason wound down. They would stop with all of the mental mistakes and the presnap penalties because they were beginning to figure it all out as a result of Johnson's attention to detail.
Whoopsie!
Houston and New Orleans were the only teams with more presnap penalties in Week 1. The Bears had the second-most presnap penaltis of any team that played at home last week.

Like with the offensive line coming together, this looks like something that requires weeks together playing in the same attack with the same quarterback using his cadence.
If the false starts weren't bad enough for the Bears, now they go on the road to one of the noisiest stadiums.

"I guess silent cadence, right?" Johnson said when asked about this issue in Detroit. "Maybe that'll help here this week. We can go on that and we're going to need to do that. We're going to need to be really good at that because this is going to be a loud environment that we're going to.
"It's going to be a playoff like atmosphere. Ford Field has been something else over the last couple years, so we are going to have to be at our best. Certainly, we haven't been good enough over the course of camp. We haven't been good Week 1, and so this is going to be a huge point of emphasis for us going forward.”
What about the attention to detail, though?

The Vikings' defensive changes with Javon Hargrave and Jonathan Allen added served to let them control the line of scrimmage. This was easy to see Monday night.
The Packers offense seems a bit clunky at times but their defense is polished and based on what the best defenses always have—a dominant front. This was a problem in the past for them. They just completely shut down two 2024 playoff teams. And that doesn't even include Micah Parsons because he's still getting his bearings.

The Bears might have crippled the Lions by taking their offensive coordinator but that weakness will only last so long unless they hired a complete incompetent—and Lions OC John Morton is a guy Johnson himself reportedly wanted to hire so this doesn't seem likely.
The NFC North will be every bit as difficult as everyone imagined.

6. D'Andre Swift

He tried. Swift is not an inside runner but he gave his best effort at it. The 53 yards on 17 carries isn't going to cut it. This is a combination of the O-line and the running, and Swift's numbers will get better when he's able to get out in the open. The interior, tough running is needed and Swift is not going to provide this.
He shouldn't have to do it. It's not his game. But the Bears did not get a proper alternative.

Kyle Monangai is a rookie seventh-round pick and Roschon Johnson injured, as he often has been. Johnson has been going through limited practices after a month-long foot injury but a foot is kind of important for a running back, just like practice is.

7. Pass rush

Their failure to bolster the edge rush significantly was a frequent topic of criticism. They did get three sacks but the edge rush wasn't intimidating and only accounted for one of the sacks.

They have no one in the top 20 among edge players for ESPN pass rush win rate. The cutoff was 16% pass rush win rate for the top 20.

Montez Sweat has on sack in his last eight games.
In fact, they have no one in the top 20 for defensive tackle pass rush win rate.
How is it that everyone else could see their lack of pass rushers but the GM couldn't and hasn't been able to see it for four years?
And now DT Grady Jarrett has a knee injury. Everyone worried about his knee injury from 2023 after he was signed by Poles.