LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — The message Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson hopes has been delivered is how confident his team has grown in its ability to win using whatever means are required.
The Bears have won about any way possible in taking nine of their last 10 games, including Friday’s 24-15 triumph over the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.
“There’s no secret, man, there are no shortcuts,” coach Ben Johnson said. “We’ve got to go out next week and put in the same amount of work that we’ve been doing and we’ve got to continue to get better.
“We’re still not at what we’re capable of being yet as an entire team, and so we’re going to continue to strive to put that full 60 minutes of three phases of complete football together.”
They’ll need to improve facing a schedule that includes the next two of three against their rivals, the Green Bay Packers.
The passing probably needs to be more consistent to keep their current five-game winning streak going, but it’s not as if the Bears have been winning only on the ground all year like they did Friday.
Against the Eagles, the Bears won with Kyle Monangai rushing for 130 yards and D’Andre Swift running for 125.
They beat Dallas with four touchdown passes from Caleb Williams and three TD passes against Cincinnati and Pittsburgh.
The defense keeps taking the ball away at a league-leading rate, after Kevin Byard’s league-high sixth interception Friday and Nahshon Wright’s forced fumble and recovery of Jalen Hurts’ tush-push attempt. They’ve done this despite injuries taking seven starters out at times.
They’ve won on special teams on the game’s final play, with a blocked field goal against the Raiders and a field goal in wet conditions against the Commanders.
All the while they keep winning on a week-by-week basis and proving wrong those skeptical about a schedule perceived as easy.
“We’ll keep focusing on being 1-0, we’ll keep focusing on finding ways to win games, but also find ways to better ourselves so we can be where we want to be,” Williams said.
The running game. They had two 100-yard rushers in a game for the first time since Matt Suhey and Walter Payton in 1985.
“To do something like that, that's amazing," Swift said. “Hats off to the O-line. I can't say that enough. The job that we're doing up front, and with the receivers blocking downfield, it makes our jobs so much easier.”
The Bears now lead the NFL in rushing at 153.8 yards a game heading into weekend games. Their 281 yards Sunday was still two yards short of their season high of 283 in beating Cincinnati.
The passing game. They averaged a season low 4.3 yards per attempt and Williams completed a season-low 47.2% (17 of 36), the fifth straight game he’s been below 60%. It isn’t only Williams. In some games they’ve had dropped passes, but Friday they had instances of receivers losing their feet twice on well-targeted throws.
Monangai had his second 100-yard game with 22 runs for 130 yards and it was his first with more than 48 since he had 176 against the Bengals on Nov. 2.
Williams. While he has completed only 53.2% of his passes the last five games, the one thing he had been doing right was avoiding interceptions.
On Friday, he threw an interception to Philadelphia’s Jalyx Hunt on a simple screen pass to end his streak at 179 straight.
Defensive tackle Andrew Billings is in the NFL concussion protocol.
47. The Bears ran the ball 47 times, 30 times more than the Eagles. That, and 10 of 17 on third-down conversions, helped them establish 39:18 in possession time to the Eagles’ 20:42.
At Green Bay on Dec. 7 with the NFC North lead on the line.
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Chicago Bears running back D'Andre Swift (4) runs the ball during the first half of an NFL football game against the Philadelphia Eagles, Friday, Nov. 28, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Chicago Bears running back D'Andre Swift (4), left, and Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Nakobe Dean (17) vie for a loose ball during the first half of an NFL football game, Friday, Nov. 28, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune announced a plan Wednesday to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security, moving past a split between the two Republican leaders that resulted in Congress leaving Washington last week without a fix to a record-setting partial government shutdown.
They said in a joint statement that “in the coming days” Republicans in Congress will return to a Senate plan to fund most of the department through an agreement with Democratic senators, with the exception of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol. Republicans would then try later to fund those agencies through party-line spending legislation.
Neither outcome is guaranteed, and the strategy could potentially still face opposition from the GOP’s own ranks even though President Donald Trump has given his support.
“We appreciate and share the President’s determination to once and for all bring an end to the Democrat DHS shutdown,” said Johnson, R-La., and Thune, R-S.D.
The plan represents a do-over of what senators had in mind when they passed a bipartisan funding agreement through unanimous consent last Friday. The Senate could approve similar legislation as soon as Thursday morning through unanimous consent, but even if that happens, it's unclear how quickly the bill could move through the House. It will likely take several months for Republicans to act on the second part of Trump's plan and pass budgeting legislation to fund ICE and Border Patrol.
House Republicans refused to go along with the Senate plan last week, instead changing the bill to fund all of DHS for 60 days.
As a result, the shutdown continued as lawmakers left for their home states and congressional districts for a two-week recess. The DHS shutdown reached its 47th day on Wednesday.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement, "Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement, making American families pay the price for their dysfunction."
The announcement from the GOP leaders showed that for now, Thune and Johnson are on the same page. Their working relationship experienced a rupture late last week when Johnson — at the urging of many House Republicans — rejected Thune’s plan.
The top Republicans hoping the path ahead will win over skeptical GOP colleagues, but the most conservative lawmakers are likely to seek full funding for all of Trump’s immigration and deportation operations.
“Let’s make this simple: caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again,” Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., posted on X. “If that’s the vote, I’m a NO.”
It is uncertain whether Johnson could find enough support from the House to recall lawmakers back to Washington before their spring recess ends in mid-April.
Meanwhile, the narrow budget package being prepared for later this year is expected to fund ICE and Border Patrol through the remainder of Trump’s term, as a away to try to ensure those agencies are no longer at risk from Democrats objecting to the president’s immigration enforcement agenda.
Earlier Wednesday, Trump weighed in on the shutdown, using a social media post to seemingly call on Republicans to fund the immigration portions of DHS through a bill that would not require Democratic support. He said he wanted the legislation on his desk by June 1.
“We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won’t be able to stop us,” Trump said.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries released a statement saying, “It’s time to pay TSA agents, end the airport chaos and fully fund every part of the Department of Homeland Security that does not relate to Donald Trump’s violent mass deportation machine.”
The vast majority of Homeland Security workers continue to report to work during the shutdown, but many thousands have been going without pay. That led to more Transportation Security Administration agents calling out from work, causing frustrating security lines at some of the nation's biggest airports. Those bottlenecks appeared to be clearing this week as agents began receiving backpay, per an executive order from Trump.
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Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed reporting.
Sen. Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks during a news conference after a policy luncheon on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, March 24, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill, Friday, March 27, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
