LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Ben Johnson wanted to set the tone and expectations for his football team early in training camp. He chose Aug. 5 as the day to do it. It was hot and kind of uncomfortable on that summer day, but the new Bears head coach didn’t care.

The Bears were putting on pads. And they were going live for large chunks of that practice. There would be no mercy.

Offense and defense went at each other hard. They fought. They scrapped. They went toe-to-toe and never backed down.

It was a practice unlike any of this era, where health is prioritized over the old-school version of training camps gone by. Many called it the most physical training-camp practice of their careers.

That’s what Johnson wanted. He wanted to see who would lean into it and who shied away. No one did. The Bears got after it, and left that day understanding how this team was going to fight.

“The buy-in was incredible,” Bears general manager Ryan Poles said in a Wednesday press conference at Halas Hall. “I go back to training camp. He needed a physical day in the dog days of camp, and that was a really cool opportunity to see those guys buy in to what he was saying, do something really hard. In the moment, does it feel good? No. But they believed, from his message, that it would help us down the road. And they went all out with it. And you saw that go through the entire season.”

These Bears were forged in fire. They understood Johnson’s message and what it would take to be successful. Way back on Aug. 5, the culture was set.

These Bears would battle to the very end, a mindset that carried them through a successful 2025 season that ended in heartbreak, with a 20-17 loss to the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC divisional playoff round. They orchestrated seven game-winning drives. They won nine one-score games. They lost just three of them.

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That comes from three traits Johnson wanted his team to have: Physicality. Being fundamentally sound. Playing football with poise.

That last one was the most important.

“That ended up being our identity there for the most of the season, and showed it up in the playoffs as well,” Johnson said Wednesday. “We handle pressure better than most, and I think that’s a credit to Ryan and the type of guys that he brought in. They’re wired the right way. They thrive in those circumstances, and that showed up for us in a big way.

“Our coaching staff tried to apply pressure on them early on, in the springtime and throughout training camp. And I’m not saying they grew numb to it, but it’s almost like they embraced it and that they were at their best in those moments.”

Player leadership bought in to what Johnson wanted. That desire extended throughout the locker room. These Bears were willing to do hard things to win.

They were willing to rip the ball from your hands. They were willing to go the extra mile to beat you, and they never say die.

“Our identity that we outlined, that we wanted to show on tape,” Johnson said. “I thought that came through, and we have it up in the team room. The words on a wall are one thing, but bringing it to life is another thing. And I thought those guys did that.”

Johnson also made a believer of his GM. He and Poles divided labor well, relying on one another to handle the business required to get through the season.

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Those two navigated the season well, making smart decisions beneficial to the football team. Now that the campaign is complete, the team’s decision makers will self-scout and find ways to improve.

“I thought this thing worked out really, really well,” Johnson said. “And with that being said, we’ll go back in the bunker here after a couple weeks and we’ll assess where we can get better. That’s our commitment to each other. That’s our commitment to this organization is that we’ve got to continue to clean up where we can find little edges that make us a little bit better over the course of the season.”

The Bears must continue pulling the right levers to sustain success now that a high bar has been set. That’s the only way they’ll keep this good thing going.

“We have a ton of decisions to make with the roster,” Johnson said. “I think it always starts with making sure you’re accurate with the evaluations of your own, how well they fit what you’re asking them to do, whether it’s someone you want to continue to move forward with or not. We’re now in a much better position as a coaching staff going into this season knowing who our guys are and what they’ll be able to contribute for us in the future. We got to nail those.

“That’ll be the No. 1 objective when we come back from a little bit of a break. I got a lot of confidence that we’ll be able to get this thing right. But the self-scout process, that’ll occur. We got a whole offseason agenda. I like to think we don’t do a whole lot, but the offseason is a whole new season of its own. So, our coaching staff, they need a little break themselves. I know we’ll come back renewed and ready to go.”