This is the expectation now: Takeaways from the Chicago Bears' offensive explosion to beat Carolina

I don't think anyone expected that from the Chicago Bears.

A 59-point start to the season? The Panthers are still picking up the pieces of their defense. The Bears, unforunately, have their own defensive struggles.

Here are our takeaways from the Bears’ record-setting offensive performance against the Panthers.

This is the expectation now

The last time we saw the Bears, they needed 59 minutes and a few spare nickels to put up 17 points on the Los Angeles Rams.

Against the Panthers, a playoff team in 2025, they just kept scoring points.

"That'll always be the goal. We want to be the highest scoring, we want to have the most wins, we want to win Super Bowls," Bears coach Ben Johnson said. "That's what we do. We didn't get into this profession trying to be mediocre or average."

It’s time to keep it real. Has there ever been an offense like this in Chicago? The Bears had 552 yards of offense and 59 points without getting touchdowns from Colston Loveland, Luther Burden III or Rome Odunze. That's the highest-scoring Week 1 game ever in the NFL.

When the Bears were rolling in the 1980s with Walter Payton, they never had this kind of traction offensively.

This 2026 team has Caleb Williams. He can make any throw. Imagine if the 80’s Bears had Williams?

Scratch that, what if Johnson was working with Payton? That would be a sight. 

Still, there’s plenty of mad scientist stuff we see every week. You can accuse Johnson of getting too cute sometimes, but you can’t deny that he’s found something that’s working at an elite level in Chicago.

The running game, paced by Monangai and Swift, are the true strengths of the offense. The Bears found that running game midway through the season last year. Now, they’re running with that as the strength.

It’s fantastic Williams is improving at such a high clip. He’s becoming better and better, and it’s truly wild to think of how good he’ll be when he becomes elite. More on that in a second.

But Johnson’s offense is a reason Williams will be elite, too. Part of that is because of the standards the head coach is setting.

The standard is to destroy. Disintegrate opposing defenses.

This is what the expectation is going forward.

"It's amazing. To be able to come out of the game like that and have so much to clean up, it's all right," Swift said. "Fifty-nine points is amazing but it should've been worse."

Williams continues showing how he improves

Caleb Williams looked like how Johnson wants him to.

He completed 70 percent of his passes – 72 percent, to be exact – and he scored four total touchdowns. He led the Bears to a win and paced a standout offense.

Yet, he still thinks about the ones he missed. Namely, there were a couple to Loveland.

"There were a few passes I left out there," he said. "There was one that should've been a touchdown to Colston that I missed. Threw it a little too far in front of him. Just small things like that."

That’s the Ben Johnson showing in him.

It’s okay to start smiling when he says that. Especially when he has a pass like he threw to Cole Kmet for a touchdown, which has to be the best throw of the week. Williams still laments the ones he missed, which is a number far fewer than last year.

"You don't get those opportunities too often," Williams said. "You get the perfect coverage with the perfect route and so got to hit those. Those are important for me and this team and us chugging along to our goal."

Williams never had a game last year where he was this efficient and this accurate. This happened in Week 1.

Johnson will remind you there are many more steps to go. Williams will probably say the same thing, too. There is a lot to work on.

It still speaks volumes that Williams is leaving Johnson feeling more and more comfortable.

"His process was really good throughout. I could kind of tell last night, we do our quarterback meeting one last time," Johnson said. "I went to bed, I slept really well with that in mind."

Let’s address the elephant in the room

Williams had a scary quote when talking about the Bears’ offense.

"This is going to be kind of our worst game," Williams said. "I know points don’t necessarily show that, but execution, the blocking, the penalties, all these different things."

The defense, on the other hand, will probably be overjoyed if that’s the case for them. The Bears’ defense did not look very good on Sunday.

The Panthers have a good offense. Let’s start there.

Bryce Young is talented and coming into his own as an NFL quarterback. They have a handful of emerging weapons.

But, the Bears allowed 478 yards of offense on 7.7 yards per play. This was a shootout, and the Bears would’ve gotten what they wanted in a blow out if their defense came together.

Granted, injuries are holding this team back. Perhaps the defense isn’t up to full speed yet. 

The still Panthers had plenty of big gains. There was Jalen Cokers’ 51-yard touchdown, or Jonthan Brooks’ 48-yard gain where he beat Jaylon Johnson. Brooks hasn’t played football in two years.

There were bright spots. Rookies Malik Muhammad and Dillon Thieneman played well. Kentavious Street played like the player defensive coordinator Dennis Allen talked him up to be.

"We definitely have a lot to clean up," Bears defensive back Malik Muhammad said.

That’s putting it lightly.

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