Ben Johnson wasn’t shy about his intentions entering his second season as head coach of the Chicago Bears. In an offseason profile by Dan Pompei at The Athletic, Johnson flatly stated he wanted more than winning a Super Bowl — he wanted to have the highest-scoring offense in NFL history.

“You’ve got 31 other teams coming to training camp saying, ‘Our goal is to win the Super Bowl,’” he says. “I want more than that. I want to have the highest-scoring offense ever, which happens to be the 2013 Denver Broncos. I know how many points per game they scored (37.9), and I want to surpass them. I want shutouts. I want blowouts.”

This level of bravado would be jarring from anyone in the taciturn world of NFL head coaches, but it was especially stunning to hear it from the head coach of the Bears. For nearly all of their 100+ year existence, Bears football has been defined by dominant defenses handicapped by some of the worst quarterbacks who have ever strapped on a professional helmet. Say the name Sid Luckman around a Bears fan of any age and watch them actively recoil, because he’s still somehow considered the best QB in franchise history despite throwing his first NFL pass the same month World War II started. Post-Luckman, the Bears have tried anything and everything to fix the QB position, only to see all of them commit atrocities against the forward pass to one degree or another.

You can imagine the shock and awe, then, when the Bears’ offense scored 59 points in Week 1 in a season-opening road win over the Carolina Panthers.

If you are a fan under 46 years old, this is the highest-scoring game of your lifetime, because the team only has three higher-scoring games in its history, with the most recent coming in 1980. Their eight touchdowns were the most by any NFL team in the last three years. Their 552 yards were the fourth most in Bears history, but you don’t have to go back that far to find precedent, because Johnson led them to 576 yards in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals last season.

It’s hard to pick out a favorite play. Third-year wide receiver Rome Odunze “Moss’d” a Panthers defensive back for a 47-yard completion. Williams had an incredible 29-yard scramble for a touchdown just before halftime to give Chicago the lead back. He also threw arguably the prettiest pass of Week 1 by dropping it perfectly into the bucket between two defenders for a 22-yard touchdown to Cole Kmet. There was also Kyle Monangai’s 61-yard touchdown run to ice the win, and newly extended starting RB D’Andre Swift breaking another long run for his last of three touchdowns on the day.

After the game, all the Bears could talk about was how they should have scored even more points. Swift pointed to a mid-game run of sloppy penalties halting their offensive momentum. Williams said this should be the worst the offense looks all year.

In Williams’ rookie season, the Bears did not score their 59th point until Week 4. It’s easy to think back to his first game as a Bear and wonder how we actually got here. In his 2024 debut against the Titans, Williams finished with 93 yards passing and zero touchdowns. The Bears won that game the only way they know how, with a special teams touchdown off a blocked punt, a pick-six, and a bunch of field goals. It was the typical kind of feel-bad win the Bears specialize in, the type that made you ponder if anything would really change even after a miracle set of circumstances led to Chicago landing him with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 draft.

It’s certainly possible the Bears would have ruined Williams’ career had they not hired Johnson ahead of his second season. It took the pairing at least half of last season to find their footing, but the Bears eventually pulled out seven comeback wins in wild fashion with Williams making serious strides down the stretch. By the end of the year, he was consistently making some of the greatest QB plays in franchise history, like his walk-off bomb to beat the Packers in Week 16, his “Jumpman” throw to convert a critical fourth down in a ridiculous comeback to beat Green Bay in the playoffs, and his mind-blowing retreat-then-heave to find Cole Kmet in the back of the end zone to force overtime against the Rams in the divisional round.

To most outsiders, the Bears looked ready for a clear step back this season. “Turnover regression” was the buzzword of the offseason, with even Johnson bringing it up as public motivation. The other prevailing theme was concerns about Williams’ inaccuracy: he finished last season completing just 58% of his passes, which ranked No. 34 in the league. While some saw a QB who constantly missed easy throws, Johnson knew he had a quarterback to who didn’t throw interceptions, cut way down on taking sacks, and could consistently create an explosive play either with his feet or his arm.

Completion percentage was always an overrated metric to evaluate QB play. Drake Maye completed 70% of his passes in the New England Patriots’ Week 1 loss, and he was still terrible. That’s not to excuse Williams from missing layups last season, but it was also relatively small potatoes for offseason panic. Williams has clear superstar ability, and it was leaping off the screen with every start in the stretch run of last year. If he puts it all together this season, there’s no ceiling on what he or the Bears offense can accomplish.

In Week 1, Williams looked like he had every trait of a franchise quarterback. There was accuracy (72.4% completion percentage!), quick decision-making, amazing elusiveness, elite speed, and his typical preternatural ability to create a big play when everything breaks down. Williams has to rank top-3 in the league in both arm strength and foot speed. He’s getting better at the little things, and when it fully comes around, he’ll be a master in total control of his domain.

Best of all, the Bears look like they have a dominant running game to fall back on after ripping off 291 yards and six touchdowns on the ground in Week 1. The right side of the offensive line has two road graders in Darnell Wright and Jonah Jackson, while left guard Joe Thuney is probably the best overall player on the team. Swift and Monangai complement each other well as a running back tandem that can grind out short yardage situations and still hit a big play. Johnson’s “no block, no rock” mantra has helped develop a culture of taking pride in downfield blocking from the wide receiver core.

Johnson again talked about his desire to be the highest-scoring offense in the league after the win, and Williams said the same thing in his immediate post-game interview. The Bears are going to need the points, because their defense was always going to be bad, a sentiment hammered home by allowing 37 points to the Panthers in the opener. Bears games won’t feel safe until they’ve scored 50 this season, and even that might not be enough some weeks with this defense behind them.

There will be other weeks to worry about the defense and a lackluster pass rush from the front seven. As long as they can stop the run, the offense will keep getting the ball back, and it feels totally possible that they can be one of the league’s elite units.

It’s hard to believe this is real life for Bears fans, but they’re going to have to get used to it. The days of struggling through games that would end 13-6 are over. These Bears will probably spend the whole season getting into shootouts when they can’t secure a blowout, because they’re going to need every point they can get.

The Bears have a lot of questions to answer before they can be called a true Super Bowl contender this year, but it feels fair to believe Johnson and Williams are a Super Bowl-caliber pairing between a head coach and a quarterback, and that’s the most important thing.

In Week 1, the Bears showed Chicago everything they’ve always wanted but could never have. For once, it actually isn’t too good to be true.