Mere minutes after the Bears’ season ended Sunday night, someone asked Cole Kmet about the team being well-positioned for the future.
The tight end wasn’t ready to go there. To do so would be to disrespect the opportunity the Bears had just tried — and failed — to grasp in their 20-17 overtime loss to the Rams at Soldier Field.
“The work we put in is for this year,” Kmet said. “Not for next year.”
The Bears came within inches of reaching the NFC Championship Game for the first time in 15 years — 72 inches, in fact, had they decided to go for the two-point conversion to win the game rather than kick a tying extra point at the end of regulation. Quarterback Caleb Williams’ miracle touchdown pass to Kmet forced overtime, but his interception in the extra period led to the Rams’ game-winning field goal. Kmet wasn’t ready to overlook any of what happened — good or bad — in the name of feeling optimistic for the future.
“You can’t take for granted the opportunities you get in this league, to get to this chance to have an opportunity to go to the NFC championship, and then who knows from there?” he said. “To just think it’s just gonna happen again, it’s very wishful thinking. Very wishful.”
Guard Jonah Jackson said he once had a coach who reminded his players “this might be your only shot.” Sitting at his locker Monday at Halas Hall, Jackson admitted that Sunday might have been that one chance. There’s never a way to know for sure.
“You don’t ever think that, but that could be the truth,” he said. “We’re going to attack next year with even more edge, hunger, to get back to where we just were and go even forward.”
And that’s why the Bears need to be aggressive this offseason — not in spite of their bright future but because of it.
They need an edge rusher to pair with — and possibly outshine — Montez Sweat. They need a long-term answer at left tackle, particularly if rookie Ozzy Trapilo’s knee injury lingers into the start of next season. And they need stability at safety, with both Kevin Byard and Jaquan Brisker on the verge of free agency.
A team that has been synonymous with tough defense can’t simply count on leading the NFL in takeaways again in 2026. The offense can’t rely on a healthy Caleb Williams playing every meaningful snap for a third consecutive season.
The Bears won the NFC North, but they also went a combined 2-4 against the Lions, Vikings and Packers. One of those wins came when the Packers couldn’t corral an onside kick.
Those teams, Kmet said, are going to come back hungry next year.
“That’s why it hurts when you have the opportunity now and you just come up a little short,” he said.
Williams rallied for seven comebacks in the fourth quarter this season, a number that is as unsustainable as it is unparalleled. Those comebacks helped the Bears go from worst to first in their division, making them the 20th team to do so in the last 23 years.
The NFL is structured to encourage that sort of movement in both directions. After playing a last-place schedule in 2025, the Bears will play a first-place slate in 2026. They’ll draft in the 25th spot in April, the latest they have picked in the first round since 2011, not counting years when they didn’t have a first-round pick.
For every team that rises, another must fall. The Commanders, who played for the NFC title last year, went 5-12 this season. The 49ers went 6-11 in 2024 after playing for the conference title the year before.
And then, of course, there are the 2019 Bears. In 2018, first-year head coach Matt Nagy led the Bears to an NFC North title. The next year, after a convention in which many of the franchise’s former greats predicted a Super Bowl berth, they went 8-8 and finished third in the division.
The Bears could be a prime candidate for regression — or they could emerge from the offseason even better than before. The point is, there are no guarantees, as Williams was quick to note.
“Every year is its own thing,” he said.
Each season is climbing a new mountain, one that only gets steeper with increased expectations.
“It starts all over again,” Kmet said. “It’s 0-0. It’s going to be twice as hard to get to this point.”
Coach Ben Johnson also wasn’t ready to entertain 2026 yet. His magical 2025 season was too fresh.
“Next season is next season,” he said Sunday night. “It’s a whole different group. It’s a whole different chapter. We’ll have to write a whole, brand-new story. . . . I wish I could say that this is momentum from Year 1. We’ll take it, [but] it doesn’t work that way. . . . Honestly, I don’t even want to talk about next year yet. There will be a time and a place for it. But we’re still hurting.”
