Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson already told the world he wanted to “have the best offense ever,” and then his club came out and put up 59 points and 552 yards on the Carolina Panthers on Opening Day to back up his words. But that wasn’t the part that should have set off alarm bells across the league.
This part is: The Bears head coach was not pleased. He wanted more. He thought his offense could have done better.
And maybe he’s right.
Because despite all the talk of the superteam that’s supposedly been assembled in Los Angeles, the Bears have an offense that has quietly been the talk of the NFL all summer within league circles. They look poised to explode in year two under Johnson, who many acknowledge as the best young player in football and the man with the best offensive system in the NFL. And he has a quarterback in Caleb Williams who looks poised to make a run at league MVP.
And there’s one more thing that makes the Bears a legitimate Super Bowl contender: Johnson is cocky and never satisfied — even more so than usual for an NFL coach. It’s not just that he declared that “there were still a bunch of things there that I didn’t like” about his offense after the Bears’ 59-37 win at Carolina on Sunday. It’s that he had his foot on the gas from the start of the game and never let up. The Bears scored touchdowns on their final four possessions, turning the game into a blowout. He even went for fourth-and-1 from his own 21-yard line before the second quarter was five minutes old.
It was a bad call — the Bears didn’t get it, and the Panthers turned the fake pass into a punt — but it proved his aggression is boundless. Johnson thinks this Bears offense can do anything.
Because it can.
Just think what Chicago did last year when Johnson, after three years leading Detroit’s dynamic offense, took over an anemic offensive team with a struggling young quarterback and turned it all into a top-10 team. He did it with a complex and creative offensive system that Williams, at times, looked like he was struggling to learn.
Caleb Williams rushes for 29-yard TD, giving Bears lead over Panthers | NFL Highlights
Now the third-year quarterback knows what he’s doing, and look at the results. Williams was 21 of 29 passing for 269 yards and two touchdowns against the Panthers while running 10 times for 65 yards and two scores. He was a dynamic and dangerous passer outside the pocket and couldn’t be contained on the run. And he wasn’t even the real story of the game. Johnson even said it was his duo making a comeback. D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai combined for four touchdowns and 224 rushing yards — announcing their presence as perhaps the best 1-2 punch in the game.
Yes, the Bears defense allowed Panthers quarterback Bryce Young to rush for 361 yards, and will have to get a lot more pressure when facing the top QBs in the league. But this Bears offense that averaged 26 points and 370 yards per game last season might just be unstoppable in 2026. If Williams can improve his completion percentage (it was a disappointing 58.1% last season), he could be the most dangerous dual-threat quarterback outside of Baltimore and Buffalo. He will be in the MVP race until the end.
As for Johnson’s stated goal, the 2013 Denver Broncos made NFL history when they averaged 37.9 points per game on their way to Super Bowl XLVII. To beat them, the Bears need to average 36.6 points the rest of the way.
That doesn’t seem unlikely as the Bears scored more points than they’ve ever scored in an opener, and the fourth most points they’ve ever scored in a game overall. And this is probably just the beginning.
Because Johnson is the type of coach who isn’t likely to stop until he gets it all. And with this team, he just might.
The Bengals may have enough defense to dominate
A healthy Joe Burrow is enough to make the Bengals a contender this season, but a resurgence on defense is what will put them over the top. And for one week, at least, it looked like their offseason overhaul worked.
The Bengals forced fumbles on three straight first-half drives to set the tone — and then another in the fourth quarter — on their way to a 33-27 victory over the Buccaneers. Cincinnati returned a punt for a touchdown and peppered Bucs QB Baker Mayfield with sustained pressure and four sacks.
Demetrius Knight Jr. recovers and returns it 27 yards for a TD to give the Bengals the lead over the Bucs | NFL Highlights
The Bengals appear to have a formidable front with newcomers Dexter Lawrence and Jonathan Allen in the middle and Boye Mafe on the outside, and that could be enough. They will score a ton of points with Burrow and all of his offensive weapons. All they need to do is play good defense and be able to get behind opposing quarterbacks late in the game.
Last year they couldn’t. As a result, they had one of the worst defenses in football. This season it looks like the defense, and thus the Bengals, might be for real.
Derrick Henry is coming for the crown
Derrick Henry still has a long way to go to become the NFL’s all-time leading rusher. After Sunday’s Week 1 blowout, he remains 5,193 yards behind Emmitt Smith (18,355), which means at least four more truly productive seasons. In other words, Henry would still have to be 1,300 meters behind at age 35.
But doubting the 6-3, 252-pound Henry can be as pointless and painful as trying to treat him, because he remains a coward of a man who defies all conventional wisdom. He has reached 1,500 rushing yards in five of the last seven seasons — those five seasons are tied with Barry Sanders for the NFL record — and looks poised to do it again after rushing for 144 yards and three touchdowns in the Ravens’ 41-23 win over the Colts.
The three scores place Henry third all-time in rushing yards (125). And he’s now up to 13,162 yards rushing (and an insane 29,879 yards when you add in his glorious high school and college career). That’s 16.9 miles—more than the length of Manhattan. Imagine doing that by getting hit every few meters for over 17 years. And yet, when he runs, he always seems to dish out far more punishment than he absorbs.
Injuries at his age, especially to running backs, are always a concern. But he has missed just 12 games in his career and more than one game in a season only once — in 2021, when he broke his leg. The man is a prodigy, so it’s a good bet that King Henry will become the Rush King sometime in 2029 or 2030.
Aaron Rodgers’ act and his game are really getting old
Mike McCarthy has a lot of faith in his former and current quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, but their reunion debut had to be a little unsettling. The Steelers beat the Falcons 20-13, but they needed running back TJ Watt to do it because the offense stalled under Rodgers, who was just 24 of 40 (60%) for 221 yards and a touchdown.
The 42-year-old showed the same problems he had last year. Almost all of his throws were short. His deep shots were wobbly or held in the air for too long. His mobility is gone — a fact McCarthy seems to know, as Rodgers’ only “runs” were three kneel downs in the game-winning drive late in the game.
Rodgers spent the weeks leading up to the opening on a media frenzy, going from podcast to podcast spouting his conspiracy theories, settling scores with ex-girlfriends and declaring himself the victim of a media witch hunt. But if he wants to drag this Steelers team into the playoffs in his final season, there are probably better ways to spend his time. Because on Sunday, the Steelers won in spite of him.
I believe he can still play, but this offense he runs needs a lot more work. And in an improved division, with the Ravens and even the Bengals potentially emerging as Super Bowl contenders, the Steelers won’t survive if Rodgers continues to look like a mediocre quarterback more interested in holding grudges off the field than excelling on it.
Aaron Rodgers-Mike McCarthy get first win in reunion, can Steelers pull through? 🏈 NFL on FOX
Time to panic in Los Angeles? Well…
Was anyone really dumb enough to buy into the Los Angeles Rams and do something crazy like … I don’t know, put them at the top of their NFL power rankings?
Yes, OK, we all make mistakes. But a long career has taught me never to read too much into the first game of the season – especially when it’s on a Friday morning in Australia, and the Rams made the dubious decision to fly 16 hours and land in Melbourne just 27 hours before kick-off. And considering Kyle Shanahan has historically had Sean McVay’s number (12-7 in head-to-head games), perhaps the 49ers’ blowout over the Rams was an anomaly, not a warning sign.
Losing Myles Garrett for a month, however, is much more concerning. The arrival of the Defensive Player of the Year was expected to transform LA’s defense. There would be no way to block him, Byron Young and the running back Aaron Donald. The pressure on the opposite works seems to be great.
But surviving without Garrett may not be so easy in the loaded NFC West as the Rams expect Donald to return to form, especially if their offense has any continued lag in the coming weeks. Good thing for them, they get a relatively soft landing against the Giants back in LA on Monday night.
They should be angry and rest. But keep the panic button handy, just in case.
Final thoughts from Sunday…
- Quarterback Deshaun Watson wasn’t terrible in his return to action (16 for 22, 205 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT), even though the Browns were. Even if he had failed, he was not in much danger of losing his job. In my visit to Browns training camp, multiple people told me that first-year coach Todd Monken planned to give Watson a long leash early in the season. So expect him to remain the starter until at least October – for better or, more likely, for worse.
- The Bills have rightfully taken a lot of flak for not giving QB Josh Allen a true No. 1 receiver. 1. But maybe they found one? DJ Moore posted a 5-100-1 stat line in his Buffalo debut. He’s 29 and not what he once was, but he looked like a big improvement over the Bills last year.
- I really thought the Cardinals had a shot to open the season 0-13. But new head coach Mike LaFleur somehow got a stellar 277-yard performance from QB Jacoby Brissett, who beat Chargers QB Justin Herbert. The Cards won’t be good, but with a roster loaded with young players, they can be competitive if they get something consistent out of Brissett.
- Meanwhile, the other LaFleur (Matt, Green Bay) should be ashamed of the way the Packers lost to the Vikings, who scored on their last four possessions — two turnovers off Green Bay — long after Kyler Murray left the game with a concussion. Green Bay could be in a lot of trouble until RB Josh Jacobs returns — whenever that may be.
