The Ice Age is Coming

You ever been so right about something that you eventually wind up being wildly wrong?

That’s how I feel right now about Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears.

Coming into the season, yours truly identified Chicago as the team most likely to take a step back in 2026. And I wasn’t the only one, either. In fact, Bears head coach Ben Johnson said himself back in July that his team was the ‘Number 1 regression candidate’ in the NFL.

And for good reason.

The Bears went 3-4 when trailing by 10 or more points in the final five minutes of games last year. That stat might not seem all the impressive on its face until you realize that, for context, the rest of the NFL went 3-153 in those situations in 2025. I think we can all agree winning games like that is not sustainable.

Good thing for Bears fans, they haven’t needed to win games like that in 2026.

In the four games that Caleb Williams has started and completed for Chicago, the Bears are first in points per game (38.5), first in yards per game (422.0), first in red zone percentage (88.5%) and first win percentage (1.000). In fact, since Williams came back from injury in Week 6, the Bears have led for 158 of 180 game minutes and have never trailed once. To say they’ve been dominating the competition would be an understatement.

Speaking of Caleb, his inconsistency was undoubtedly the biggest reason why I was so down on Chicago coming into this season to begin with. As great as he was late in games, he was mid at-best in the other three-and-a-half quarters. Williams was 32nd in completion percentage (58.1%), 37 th in off-target rate (20.2%) and near the bottom in

CPOE.

But boy, has the Ice Man flipped the script in 2026.

Since returning from that hamstring injury, Williams is averaging 286.7 pass yards per game with a 4:0 TD:INT ratio and a 111.3 passer rating. During that stretch, Williams is second in the NFL in completion percentage, QBR and explosive play rate. He has looked every bit like that generational quarterback prospect he was billed as coming out of college.

Before the season, Johnson raised eyebrows when he said he wanted the Bears to have the highest scoring offense in NFL history. Before the season, Williams got side-eyed when he said that he wanted to become the first player ever to grace the cover of Madden in back-to-back years. Before the season, I would’ve called them both crazy for setting their sights so damn high. 

But now? I think it’s safe to say I undersold what they got cooking over there in the Windy City.

The Ice Age is coming.