Ben Johnson's message of immediacy remains in place for Bears

It almost seems to have been a mandate from above or maybe just occurred from coach Ben Johnson setting the tone for the Bears very early.

The "P" word seems to have vanished at Halas Hall and this might be the most refreshing change there since Matt Eberflus left for good on the day after last Thanksgiving.

The "P" word, of course, is patience.

The Bears forever have preached patience whether it comes to training quarterbacks or their inept offenses, and pleaded for patience from fans. More than any other term they've used this one, so they could buy time to come up with new plans of action following failure, or when they see the multitude rising up in anger over another lousy season.

It was less than a year ago when the last person who should ever be asking for patience did so, and that was team owner George McCaskey.

"Caleb's got a lot of support—a solid defense, good receivers, good offensive line, a good running game, tight ends," McCaskey said, via Pat Finley of the Sun-Times. "But I hope people will be patient.

"There are going to be growing pains. He's going to make mistakes. That's part of the learning process for any young quarterback."

The "P" word is not allowed at Halas Hall now. Ben Johnson made sure of this, and you never heard players offering it up during OTAs or minicamp.

Johnson set a new tone on Day 1.

"Our mission, our mission, starting this spring, is to win and to win now," Johnson simply said.

He didn't mention patiently constructing a foundation first, like Matt Eberflus did before, during and after his first season.

Around the NFL writer Nick Shook from NFL.com seemed to have bought into all the waiting around.

"The Bears' rebuild was always going to require multiple seasons; the 2025 campaign might be the first in which we see notable progress, because of how they strategically sifted through the offseason," he wrote.

It was more like a rapid influx of necessary talent than a strategic sift. Either way, he's at least willing to admit there should be improvement, even if he indicates they needed time.

Johnson obviously expects more.

It's easy to see why fans would be impatient after six straight seasons without a winning record and division title, and 14 full seasons without a playoff win.

Tight end Cole Kmet called this attitude understandable and not necessarily exclusive to the Bears.

"Like, it's easy to go ‘woe is me,’ but then you also look at it like, unfortunately, this is most of the NFL," he said. "Like there's maybe eight organizations out there that have crazy consistency over a 10-year period.

"That's just not what we've been in, and, you know, you kind of get used to the chaos a little bit as you've been in here, and you learn to deal with those things, and you learn to adapt."

The adapting and losing is over as far as Johnson is concerned. He hasn't wavered from the earlier statements about how they can succeed immediately and players are thinking of it the same way.

"So yeah, I think like when you take a step away from a season, like it's sure, it's definitely frustrating when you look at it and, you know, you get to playoff time and teams are still playing and you're not, and, you know, you kind of feel those things," Kmet said. "But you kind of understand it. It's part of being in the NFL, and I'm optimistic that this will be the last time that we do these crazy (coaching) changes, at least in my career, hopefully."

In this case, change has been more rapid and for the better.