LAKE FOREST, Ill. — By Sunday, 239 days will have passed since Caleb Williams’ pass intended for DJ Moore was picked off by the Los Angeles Rams’ Kam Curl at Soldier Field, which means 239 days of waiting for this Chicago Bears season to begin.That’s almost eight months of talking, worrying and dreaming about the Bears.There is no offseason from a city’s and a fanbase’s obsession, but last season has long been over, a fact that coach Ben Johnson has belabored since his team bowed out of the playoffs on an overtime field goal last January.It had been some time since the Bears had won a playoff game, as they did last January in a dramatic win over the Green Bay Packers. Fifteen years, to be exact.In the 2011 season following that previous postseason victory, the Bears started strong but fell apart after an injury to the quarterback. Six more seasons would pass before a return to the playoffs.That was in 2018, Matt Nagy’s first season as coach. The next year, the Bears finished four games worse and out of the playoffs.Flash forward to last year and, well, you know the rest.What we're watching from Caleb Williams in 2026Kevin Fishbain and Dan WiedererSustained success has been about as common at Halas Hall as a 4,000-yard passer, and Johnson is an aware Bear.“I recognize that last year was a cool season, OK? It was for the players, for the staff, for the city,” Johnson told The Athletic’s Kevin Fishbain and Dan Wiederer recently. “I recognize that, and I don’t want to downplay that. That was an incredible experience, something that I will never forget.“At the same time, I also know recent history in Chicago has been, you can have a flash-in-the-pan season, and then the next season it (disappears). You know? We don’t want that. Nobody wants that.”What Bears fans want is twofold: a competitive present and a future with possibility. It sounds easy but has proven almost impossible. (Kind of like the stadium deal.)Chicago fell in love with the franchise again last season because the Bears won a lot of games, beat the Packers twice (with some high drama) and showed their fans that their dreams of a high-level coach-quarterback pairing weren’t just a fantasy.Last season is indeed a memory, but what a memory it was. Building off that is the goal.“Sure, we want to do big things this year,” Johnson said, “but really what’s most important to us is that we’re laying the foundation the right way.”