Lincicome: Great expectations still a weighty subject for Johnson and the Bears

Let’s quote the rarely quotable Ben Johnson, Bears coach and sideline sphinx, about where the Bears are and where they are going.

“It’s no different from if you’re trying to lose 50 pounds,” Johnson said to the press at his season summary. “The first 30 is easiest, the last 20 are the hard part.”

While I doubt if Johnson has ever faced the problem of substantial weight loss, the image is identifiable with many Bears fans, especially those shirtless pilgrims who treat Soldier Field as a sauna, no matter the weather.

And, speaking for myself, the first 30 are not all that easy.

Where was I? Oh, yes. Where are the Bears and where are they headed?

Perhaps we can borrow and paraphrase another classic quote of struggle, better than Johnson’s weight-loss example: “We (the Bears) ain’t what we oughta be, we ain’t what we wanna be, we ain’t what we’re gonna be, but thank God, we ain’t what we was.”

Optimism has a free pass until the Bears’ opener, maybe even until halftime of the Bears’ opener, leaving some 33 weeks of reassurance, allowing every choice to be seen as another packet of sugar in the candy machine.

How much more interesting is this than the usual lull until the NFL draft and then until training camp.

See, already there is a positive layer, like an extra sweater on a cold day.

Until whatever happens next is known, everything is assumed to be just swell, the memory of a touchdown heave still outshining an overtime interception. A playoff loss seems an achievement rather than an affirmation, much more encouraging than the last double-doink playoff result.

Never has losing felt as much like winning, a misguided judgment but reasonable considering where the Bears had been for so long and where they could easily find themselves again.

“We’re one of 31 other teams that fell short,” said Johnson, his math excluding the four teams still playing.

These Bears are not those Bears — you know the ones I mean — or even the occasionally competent Bears who toiled gamely or futilely since 1985. These Bears are encouraging, promising and flawed.

A season built on takeaways and field goals is not a sustainable strategy and as romantic a notion as being the “Cardiac Kids,” as somebody — not me — insisted on calling them, better to be “Monsters of the Midway,” or “Bullies of Arlington,” or “Ogres of Indiana,” depending on where they eventually roost.

“We won games, put ourselves in a good position, but ultimately we came up short and our guys are going to learn from this,” Johnson said.

Johnson did compliment the Bears on their physicality, harking back to the time of Urlacher, et. al., but the pass rush didn’t really show it and no opponent seemed particularly fearful of doing whatever and wherever they pleased.

“It wasn’t good enough. There’s a lot of work coming up,” Johnson said, refusing to see the glass nearly full.

Johnson will grow into Chicago or he won't. I suppose he will. His brush-off handshake of Green Bay coach Matt LaFleur was a good start. So far it's been promising, as if the Bears have won the lottery for The Next Great Coach.

If things now were as they were, we would have only grumbling and apprehension, the usual postseason annoyances. Instead, faith dwells in the hole usually filled by coaching changes and quarterback disapproval.

“I am Caleb Williams’ No. 1 believer,” Johnson said, assuming the head of a growing line of admirers.

While Williams did not meet Johnson’s goal of 4,000 yards passing and 70% completions, (and twice threw game-losing interceptions) he became what he was supposed to become, a quarterback to believer in building a reputation for late-game dramatics.

“There is no building off this,” Johnson said “We go back to square one.”

That’s what I think every time I get on the bathroom scale.