With their 41-9 win over the Buffalo Bills, the Bears finished their first half-season under a rookie head coach with as many wins – five – as they had all last season under John Fox. For a franchise groping and flailing in large part ever since the end of the Lovie Smith regime, reaching 5-3 at midseason represents an accomplishment in itself, at least a numerical one, if for no other reason than the Bears for a second straight week showed they can indeed win a game without a Khalil Mack or Allen Robinson.
The record isn’t the real point, though, so much as the progress, or how real that progress it actually is.