The Bears Are Here, Caleb Williams Is Ready, and the NFC Isn’t Prepared

For most of the 2025 season, it was easy to double down on doubting the Bears.

Here they are, locked into a top-3 conference seed and raising the NFC North champion flag, squaring up with the most dominant team in the NFC this decade Sunday night and I still can't.

Can't get past the defense that couldn't protect a two-score lead against J.J. McCarthy.

Can't get past the feeling the Packers will win a possible third meeting.

Can't dismiss the idea that it might not matter how many points the Bears give up if this is the Caleb Williams we experience in his first NFL postseason.

For four quarters at San Francisco, Williams largely looked like the next Mahomes, Josh Allen, Aaron Rodgers or some combination therein.

We know Matthew Stafford and the Rams are not a team you'd invite for wild-card weekend. But if you are stack-ranking quarterbacks in the conference playoffs as of this morning, who has it better than the Bears in the NFC?

We'll wait.

Don't sell us Jalen Hurts. Did you watch the continued trend of toe-dragging offense from Philadelphia in the second half at Buffalo?

Only the bizarre and unfortunate call to go for the win at home after dominating the Eagles in the second half by Bills coach Sean McDermott saved Hurts from being roasted in the postgame scrum.

As of this writing, Jordan Love isn't even OK'd to participate in a playoff game. And if his line remains ragtag going on the road in two weeks, this is a difficult sell.

Baker Mayfield? Pfft. Check that fourth-quarter completion chart against the Miami Dolphins on Sunday.

Panthers QB Bryce Young hasn't graduated from the kid's table. Fifty-four passing yards on Sunday in a possible hat-t-shirt-and-trophy game is embarrassing.

If Seattle has to win on the road to reach the Super Bowl, g'luck to the Seahawks' defense trying to keep up. We know by now Sam Darnold better be at home for the biggest games of the year or Seattle is cooked. We can rewind to Sunday at Carolina, when Darnold stepped in it with both feet and had the Panthers on the verge of fielding a punt down 17-10 before Jaycee Horn's brutal facemask penalty flipped the entire fourth quarter.

This isn't the first rodeo with Sam, He's Not.

Did you see Darnold in the Week 18 regular-season finale last season? The Lions whiplashed Darnold and the Vikings and his 43.9 completion percentage in that loss sent Minnesota to play the Rams (in Arizona due to wildfires) in the wild-card round. Darnold was sacked nine times, intercepted once and the Vikings never invited him back because of it.

We are open to the possibility that Brock Purdy, aided by the crutch that is Christian McCaffrey, is the best of the passers still going in the NFC. He had more than 295 passing yards for the third game in a row and accounted for five total touchdowns for the second consecutive game.

He's doing it without a legitimate No. 1 wide receiver. Tight end George Kittle didn't play Sunday night.

And Purdy has been Super Bowl good before.

For the first time since 1998, the playoffs are set to begin in two weeks with no Manning, Tom Brady or Mahomes.

Maybe at long last it's Allen's time.

Or are we about to see the days gone by pantheon of NFL quarterbacks re-racked with the dawn of a new era?

We. Can't. Wait.