O’Donnell: Playoff Bears go from ’dog to chalk, now have to beat history
BEGIN WITH THE CURRENT POSITIVES AT 1920 FOOTBALL DRIVE:
Ben Johnson has transformed the football culture within Halas Hall.
Caleb Williams has established a football résumé as a generally successful slow starter.
The 2025 Bears season so far has been the most recurringly theatrical since, gasp, Super Bowl Shufflers once ruled the Soldier Field turf.
THAT'S WHY IT WAS SURPRISING Sunday night when all-sensing Las Vegas oddsmakers initially posted the visiting Packers as 1½-point favorites for Saturday's highway-thumping wild-card lake-off (7 p.m.; Prime Video and WFLD-Channel 32 in Chicago, plus AM-1000).
By Monday afternoon, significant early betting flow — close to 75% taking the Bears — flipped that line to Chicago minus-1½.
Support like that could best be termed “tepid,” like calls for National Guard troops to protect the 326 acres that once housed Arlington Park.
MUCH HAS BEEN SIMMERING behind the lines for B.J. and the Bears in recent weeks and it hardly suggests switchin' toward Super Bowl 60.
Consider:
· The Bears haven't played a complete game against a quality team since their tour de force at Philadelphia on Thanksgiving weekend;
· They're 2-3 since, including the split with Green Bay;
· Of the six vaunted “cardiac victories” this season, only one — the 22-16 OT thriller over the Packers — has happened in the last seven weeks.
FURTHER, THE COMEBACK VS. THE PACKERS occurred after Jordan Love was knocked out of that game with a concussion. He's expected to play Saturday night, as are all of the late-season GB regulars who were rested Sunday during a pantomimed 16-3 loss at Minnesota.
For most engaged realists about Chicago, here's more micro points:
· Two weeks ago, a serious San Francisco offense toyed with Bears defenders en route to a 42-38 win. Saturday night, those same SF bulldozers — even with George Kittle back — lost to a visiting Seattle juggernaut 13-3;
· Regenerating football outfits such as Johnson's Bears normally need “a trip over the playoff track” to learn how to win in the NFL postseason.
For further reference, please see Dick Jauron's 2001 Bears, a 13-3 group seeded No. 2 and throttled by Donovan McNabb and the visiting Eagles in a divisional playoff encounter 33-19.
Or Matt Nagy's 2018 Bears — 12-4 out of the gate, seeded a frisky No. 3 in the NFC and waylaid by the lords of doink-doink 16-15 via another convocation of Eagles on the Chicago lakefront.
SO COSMICALLY, THE NAYS SEEM to have it for the Bears in their initial Ben Johnson January close-up.
Now if instead that recurring theater can fall the Chicago way.
STREET-BEATIN':
Most high-profile sportscaster during the electric five-day CFP-NFL championship trail beginning Thursday night will be Kirk Herbstreit. “Herbie” and Chris Fowler will call the Ole Miss-Miami semifinal (7 p.m., ESPN) and then Herbstreit and Al Michaels will handle the Bears-Packers on Prime Video two nights later. (He's the most facile analyst in the game right now.) …
ESPN tabbed Sean McDonough and Greg McElroy to work the Indiana-Oregon CFPer Friday (7 p.m.).
Brad Spencer and North Central College may have lost the Division III Stagg Bowl championship to UW-River Falls 24-14 Sunday night but otherwise a good time was had by many Cardinals fans. NCC rented the Gridiron Gastropub in Canton, Ohio, steps from Tom Benson Stadium. The pub became a mini “Naperville East.” Spencer is now an eye-popping 58-2 as head coach at his alma mater. …
In a sanction that almost defies comprehension, the Illinois Racing Board ordered Hawthorne Race Course to stop taking bets Saturday after track management failed to post required bonds to operate in 2026. Harness horsemen also complained that two cycles of checks from HAW had bounced. The IRB ban applied both on-track and at Hawthorne-run OTBs, including ones in Prospect Heights and Hoffman Estates. …
NFL stat of the year: The New York Jets intercepted zero passes in their 3-14 campaign. Joe W. Namath used to throw three for the NYJ before halftime in the wide-open old American Football League and still win shootouts. Makes a fan appreciate positive turnover margin all that much more. …
Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.