The 2005 Chicago Bears season was their 86th regular season and 24th post-season completed in the National Football League. The club posted a 11-5 record, earning them their first NFC North title and the second seed in the NFC for the playoffs.
The season started off with the club trying to rebound from a 5–11 season under now sophomore coach Lovie Smith. Smith was eager to lead his young team to a Super Bowl, but a preseason injury to starting quarterback Rex Grossman spelled disaster for the Bears.
The Bears began the season on a negative note, winning only one of their first four games. Despite their poor passing game, the Bears managed to win eight consecutive games through a perseverant defense and running game. The Bears eventually clinched a playoff berth on Christmas Day against the Green Bay Packers. However, in their first playoff game in almost four years, the Carolina Panthers upset the Bears, 29–21.
Famous quotes containing the words bears and/or season:
“As an eagle stirs up its nest, and hovers over its young; as it spreads its wings, takes them up, and bears them aloft on its pinions, the LORD alone guided him...”
—Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 32:11,12.
“The theater is a baffling business, and a shockingly wasteful one when you consider that people who have proven their worth, who have appeared in or been responsible for successful plays, who have given outstanding performances, can still, in the full tide of their energy, be forced, through lack of opportunity, to sit idle season after season, their enthusiasm, their morale, their very talent dwindling to slow gray death. Of finances we will not even speak; it is too sad a tale.”
—Ilka Chase (1905–1978)