Ben Johnson’s debut in his first regular season game as the Chicago Bears head coach didn’t go as planned with the 27-24 loss to the Minnesota Vikings at Soldier Field.

The tape will show plenty of areas that need to be addressed in all three phases, and it will have to be done quickly as the team will go on the road to face the Detroit Lions – who are also coming off a Week 1 loss. 

While the Bears focus on making the necessary corrections, they can look at some of the positives that came away from the loss. 

In the debut episode of “Bears Den” with Anthony “Spice” Adams and Charles “Peanut” Tillman, the former Bears provided their insight on the Week 1 matchup, including what was encouraging from the first game of the season. 

For Tillman, he highlighted Caleb Williams’ performance. 

“We see these glimpses of what Caleb can do throwing wise,” Tillman said. “First quarter he is rolling to his right, Rome Odunze is running to the sideline and he just fires a cannon. Agreed it was only seven yards, but it was a great throw, a great catch. I think it was a better throw than a catch, but still that’s impressive. And I think I was looking forward to seeing more plays like this.

“Caleb has done a better job this season extending plays with his feet. The one thing I wish he could have did more was as he is extending the play — there were a few times when there were receivers open down the field and he just kind of took off running. Granted or not, we got the first down but I would like in the future to see him extend those plays with his feet and actually throw the ball down the field with some of the receivers.”

Williams started the game 10-for-10 and finished the Bears’ first drive with a 9-yard touchdown run. He also showed elusiveness by avoiding the Vikings’ pressure. 

The second-year quarterback ended the game with 210 passing yards on 21-of-35 attempts and threw a touchdown to Odunze. Williams also led the Bears in rushing yards with 58. 

Adams liked what he saw from running back D’Andre Swift, who ended the night with 17 rushing attempts for 53 yards and caught three passes for 12 yards. 

“I like to see the fact that Swift was running in between the tackles, right,” Adams said. “Usually when you see Swift last year, it would always be plays to the outside where they would throw a screen pass or something to him or they would throw him something where he is out in the slot or something like that or he just tries to bounce everything outside. Last night, you could see that he was very intentional about running in between the tackles and he was making some good decisions. I just think they needed more of that.”

Even though Swift only averaged 3.1 yards per carry, Adams’ positive words were also echoed by Johnson during his Zoom press conference on Tuesday afternoon. 

“I thought Swift ran hard when the ball was in his hands,” Johnson said. “There’s probably a couple reads where he could’ve hit it maybe a little different, but for the most part, I was pretty pleased with how he played.”

One of reasons why the Bears’ run game wasn’t as effective was because of Vikings offseason addition Javon Hargrave. The veteran defensive tackle finished with five total tackles, seven quarterback pressures and two sacks. 

“I think he was the difference-maker in the fourth quarter,” Tillman said. “His two sacks, his run defense. He single handedly took over that game for the Minnesota Vikings. He had a day. I tip my hat to him. I wish I couldn’t, but you got to give credit where credit is due, and the man had one hell of a game. He was throwing offensive linemen like ragdolls. He had a hell of a game.”

This is only the start of the type of analysis you can expect from Adams and Tillman for the remainder of the Bears’ 2025 NFL season. 

You can check out new episodes of Bears Den every Tuesday on the Marquee Sports Network.