The Seatbelt Is Unfastened, The Shoulder Harness Has Lifted

It was the best ride. It shouldn't happen again.

The first few moments after a roller coaster can be a little dicey. You step off the ride onto solid ground again, and you're unsure. You have to really ground yourself through your feet to quickly remind how the Earth actually moves, and where you fit in it. The first few steps are a little more cautious than normal. Then equilibrium is regained, everything feels centered again. And you can't wait to get on the next one.

That's where we Bears fans found ourselves on Monday. The most ridiculous ride was over, and much like every roller coaster (except for Raging Bull. That fucker never ends), it felt like it came a little quicker than we were ready for. While it's hard to be too upset, as the Bears probably didn't have any business playing in the Divisional Round in the first place and we'd already gotten the bounty we'd come for, there's still a crash. Maybe nothing that totals the car, but probably a step up from a fender bender.

There will never be another Bears season like 2025. Certainly, there never had been one like it before. It's hard to apply any logic to it, because so much of it defied logic. They were never beaten, they usually found a way, even when every impulse built over the last 25 years told us there was no way. This isn't what the Bears do. It was like being shunted to The Land Of Tomorrow in our sleep, waking up, and trying to piece together how everything works now...while attached to a missile.

There are moments we will take with us forever. There is still a glow about some of it that we should try to carry through the winter. The excitement it engenders about the future is palpable. We'll talk about it for as long as we still don the blue and orange gear.

It should also never happen again.

Don't worry. This isn't some treatise about how it all isn't real and it was only fluke and soon we'll find out the emperor has no clothes. Definitely not. It's just that if the Bears become the team they say they will, that they need to be, all of this shouldn't be necessary. Not all the time. There will still be comebacks and ridiculous finishes and throws that will live in eternity in the last minute. They just shouldn't be required every week. A more complete team doesn't require it. The Bears need to be a more complete team.

I saw a lot of comparisons to the '09 Hawks and '15 Cubs on the timeline in the aftermath Sunday night. I don't think it's that clean. Football is a rough comparison to other sports. Injuries and randomness play such a bigger role in a 17-game season. Teams don't always progress as naturally as it feels they should.

The weighting of the schedule makes a difference, too, even if it only dictates 3 of the 17 games. But those three games for the Bears next year are the Eagles, Seahawks, and Jaguars. This year it was the Saints, Niners, and Raiders. Step up, for sure. They'll move from the AFC North this year to the East next year, which will have two teams (as of now) better than anything they saw from the North this season. Maybe that's balanced by shifting to the NFC South from the NFC East, but how much?

It's more than that, though. That Hawks team, that Cubs team, they both were way more set than this Bears team is. Maybe they have the two most important things locked in, coach and QB, but even they have things that have to improve before September. The Bears offense, for the most part, wasn't all that good before the "Tactics Free Zone" of the end of the 4th quarter. Before entering that vortex, where everything that came before didn't matter, they had 10 points against the Rams. They had six against the Packers. They had eight versus the Lions. They had six in the Packers game before that. This list could go on. When the Bears were trying to do what they had planned to do all week, they usually couldn't do it all that well.

The defense could cling by their fingernails, once the turnovers dried up, but they'll have to do more, maybe way more, in the coming years. Who are THE DUDES to make that happen? Are there any? Jaylon Johnson was once. Can he be again, with his red bursting crotch dots? Kyler Gordon could be, if you squint, but will he ever be on the field enough? That might be the entire list of possibles.

More worryingly, the guy in charge of finding THOSE DUDES is the one who's had four years to do so an hasn't gotten one, not for sure, on that side of the ball (Johnson was here when Ryan Poles got here). Now, Poles doesn't have top-10 picks and a canyon of cap space. The job is harder now, and he most certainly didn't ace it when it was simpler.

Ben Johnson still has some racks to clear, too. He still can get up his own ass in the playoffs when it comes to playcalling, especially in January. Last year, it was the trick plays late. This year, it was a stubbornness on trying to run for 3rd- and 4th-and-shorts with a run game that had been stifled. All the pieces are there, he's certainly smart enough, but until a coach crosses that bridge, it's never sure that he will.

That paints a darker picture than it is. Never knowing you're beaten can take a team a long way. It already did. Having a QB that can make all the plays with the game and season on the line isn't something every team gets. Few do, in fact. Another year without having to learn anything new could do wonders for everyone, instead honing what they already have. They should be a noticeably sharper outfit simply because of that. This coaching staff has proven it can make a it work with a consistently shuffling deck and whoever is around to use. That's a big deal. The Bears will never be outwitted. That's a large portion of the game.

This season was special, mostly in its surprise and uniqueness. It hit nerves that were long dead, and some we didn't even knew we had. It reminded us all what the Bears mean to this place, that no other team can touch. But that surprise and uniqueness aren't things any team should have to recreate. It was immense fun, we'll cherish it. But don't ever fuckin' do it again.