Winning has a funny way of covering up things that would otherwise have fans calling for somebody's job. The Chicago Bears are 5-2, Caleb Williams is putting up impressive numbers, and Ben Johnson has given this offense something it hasn't had in years.
But how many times is Chicago going to let an opponent back into a game it seemingly has under control?
Because it's becoming a habit. And eventually, somebody is going to make the Bears pay for it.
The Bears keep turning comfortable leads into unnecessary drama
Chicago had New England exactly where it wanted Thursday night.
Up 20-7 late in the second quarter, the Bears were in position to head into halftime with a comfortable lead. Instead, Drake Maye threw a short pass to Rhamondre Stevenson, who somehow turned it into a 48-yard touchdown with three seconds remaining.
Three seconds.
That's all Chicago needed to survive without giving up a touchdown. Apparently, even that was asking too much.
Maye wound up throwing for 321 yards while completing 24 of his 31 passes. He wasn't spending the evening desperately trying to escape pressure, either. For long stretches, he looked entirely too comfortable.
The previous week wasn't much prettier.
Chicago led Atlanta 31-7 in the fourth quarter before the Falcons rattled off 16 unanswered points in less than four minutes.
The Bears won both games, which is probably why those defensive performances haven't generated nearly as much criticism as they deserve.
Imagine the reaction if Chicago had lost either one.
Caleb Williams is making the defense look better than it is
Williams threw for 305 yards against Atlanta and followed that with 308 against New England.
Those aren't numbers Bears fans have been accustomed to seeing from their quarterback. And Johnson deserves plenty of credit for getting this offense moving.
But there's a problem with having a quarterback who can bail everybody out.
People start expecting him to do it.
Chicago scored 30 points against New England and still needed a 58-yard field goal from Cairo Santos to help put the game away. That's a lot to ask from an offense that already did more than enough to win.
What happens when Williams has an ordinary afternoon?
Maybe the offensive line struggles. Maybe a receiver drops a touchdown. Maybe Chicago runs into a defense that doesn't allow Johnson to dictate everything.
Those games are coming.
And when they do, the Bears can't afford to have their defense giving away points because somebody missed an assignment or took a terrible angle.
Ben Johnson has a problem that won't disappear with another win
Dennis Allen isn't working with a defense completely devoid of talent.
Kyler Gordon has made his presence felt. D'Marco Jackson came up with a huge interception against New England. There have been individual performances worth celebrating.
The trouble is everything happening between those plays.
A defense can make a spectacular interception and still spend most of the afternoon getting picked apart. Chicago has provided a couple of examples lately.
Seattle and Tampa Bay are next on the schedule, and neither opponent is particularly interested in helping the Bears figure things out.
That's what makes the next two games so interesting.
Chicago doesn't need its defense to be the best in football. It doesn't even need to be particularly flashy. Just stop turning double-digit leads into fourth-quarter adventures.
Johnson was hired to fix an offense that had frustrated Bears fans for years. Seven games into his tenure, there's plenty of evidence he's doing exactly that.
Now he's discovering something every offensive-minded head coach eventually learns.
You can spend all week drawing up the perfect game plan, watch your quarterback execute it beautifully, and still end up sweating through the final two minutes because the other side of the ball can't get off the field.
At 5-2, the Bears can laugh about those close calls.
At some point, they might not be laughing anymore.
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