It takes crazy levels of confidence to be this cold. And Chicago Bears Quarterback Caleb Williams has got it. Think of Chicago Bulls legend Derrick Rose banking that buzzer beater against Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in game three of the 2015 NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals. His stale face lives rent free in every Chicagoan’s head. Or Chicago Bulls GOAT Michael Jordan hitting the winning shot against the Utah Jazz in the 1998 NBA finals, cementing the Bulls sixth championship.
On 4th and 8, somehow suspended in the air while throwing a bullet straight to fellow sophomore Rome Odunze in the 4th quarter of Saturday’s do-or-die wildcard game against the cheesy Green Bay Packers, Williams did more than save the game. He doubled down on the flashes of superhuman ability he’s shown Bears fans all season long.
That boy Caleb Williams is bad, in a good way, and this playoff stretch is only the beginning for him. The Bears play the Los Angeles Rams in cold Chicago at 5:30 p.m. central this Sunday for NFL divisional playoffs.
Chicago comedian Mojo Brookzz called it in week eight, after the Bears beat the Bengals 47-42 in a stunning last minute comeback win in Cincinnati. “I don’t care what color his nails is. I don’t care what color, long as he can throw the rock. Matter fact, Caleb, nail date on me baby.”
Brookzz’s post-game reaction videos go viral every week, becoming just as much of a tradition as Bears Head Coach Ben Johnson’s “Good Better Best” locker room speeches after a dub.
Williams paints his nails. So what. Just like any rockstar, he’s comfortable in his own skin. He’s cold; so cold that he’s now Chicago’s Iceman, and he’s leading the coolest team in the NFL into sports immortality.
“Shout out to people like Mojo Brookzz, who leaned into his whole nail thing, ‘french tips on me,’” said Herb Howard, Bears beat reporter for The Bigs, an independent Chicago media outlet that covers Chicago sports. “Chicago is a tough, tough city, but if we gain the respect and love for you, we’ll wrap our arms around you in a way that I don’t think any other city can.”
Sure, Chicago is a sports town. We’ve made bold statements before, like the Bears releasing the Super Bowl Shuffle in the middle of their 1985 championship run. The six-time champion Chicago Bulls were cold as hell in the 1990s, attracting adoring fans around the globe. The White Sox have always had national visibility; their logo was a staple in streetwear fashion and hip hop in the 1980s and 90s.
But there’s something special about this 2025 Chicago Bears team. So much so, there are people on social media saying that a Bears Super Bowl win will close the hellscape timeline that opened with the Chicago Cubs World Series win in 2016. All roads lead to this Bears team being cool. QB18, who is a 24-year-old Gen Z-er, keeps a matcha in hand and rather “vintage” wired headphones in ear during his pregame walk. Fans sing the chorus of Lil’ Wayne’s 2004 track “Go DJ” each time 28-year-old DJ Moore scores. Odunze, 23, has swag that’s reminiscent of Allen Iverson and Randy Moss, with braids one game and an afro the next.
Rookie running back Kyle Monangai, 23, angrily runs the ball, landing himself on cool T-shirts. Last, but not least, there’s 27-year-old linebacker Tremaine Edwards, 27, who ain’t even from here but he checked in the right way with his post-game battle cry, “It’s Chicago, yeah,” a salute to DJ Pharris’s producer tag. The attention has taken DJ Pharris’ name to new heights; fans are hanging on after each game, wondering if the players will slip up and say the true tagline, “This Chicago, n-gga.”
“People take it and say ‘It’s Chicago,’ but it’s ‘This Chicago.’ But that’s OK,” Pharris said in an interview on FOX 32 Chicago recently. This week, he launched a T-shirt collab with Succezz retail store. “The first person that used it was [former Bear] Keenan Allen last year from the Chicago Bears. He used that and it got a big response on social media, it went viral.”
Edmunds picked it up and the popularity grows with each win.
“They’re just some cool young dudes that happen to be really good at football,” Howard said. The 39-year-old East Side native has been covering the Bears for five years. He hasn’t seen any other Bears roster win over the city — and really, the nation — in such a short period of time. Their swag, charm, competitive fervor, and that never die attitude is relatable to so many in the city, no matter which side you live on.
“The fans want tough people. They want confident people. They want people to play with a chip on their shoulder. And, you know, that’s Chicago, we tough, we confident, and we got a chip on our shoulder,” he said.
Howard contrasted the visibility of Black athletes in American football with other major sports like basketball and baseball, arguing that their representation and unabashed grittiness fuels connection.
“I think football is just the most popular sport,” Howard said. “When you talk about baseball, it’s just not a lot of Black people on the teams. They don’t have that connection in that way. Having so many young Black dudes just grow up with similar experiences, it’s a shared experience that we can tap into, a shared energy that we kind of have.”
It’s no secret that Chicago’s biggest export is culture. Chicago historian Shermann “Dilla” Thomas tells y’all all the time, “Everything dope about the country comes from Chicago.” There’s a video on social media right now with brand strategist Rachel Parris breaking down Chicago’s cultural relevance around the world.
The Bears are attracting casual football fans, and even those who aren’t into “sportsball.” And thanks to social media moments like Edmunds adopting DJ Pharris’s tagline, Coach Johnson ripping off his shirt to feed free Wiener Circle hotdogs to the people, and Monongai showing up to a game rocking Derrick Rose’s Simeon high school jersey, the Bears players — and the team’s social media team — are not only tapped into Chicago’s culture, but they’re uplifting it.
Among Chicago’s biggest exports are dance trends. Stepping, the Cha Cha Slide, jukin’ and footwork all hail from the city, and were created by Black people. DJ Nate, 24, first went viral after posting a juke mix of the famous Chicago commercial jingle for United Auto Insurance. The post now has over 500,000 views on TikTok.
Then the Bears started winning and he made a “Bear Down Juke remix” in his garage. “Bear Down, Chicago Bears” is the team’s storied fight song written in 1941 by Al Hoffman under the pseudonym Jerry Downs. DJ Nate’s version has gone viral on Instagram and TikTok, with Chicagoans footworkin’ to the mix after each Bears dub.
The Bears picked up on DJ Nate’s track and asked him for permission to use it. He gave it, of course, and the Bears have started to use the mix on their socials.
“It’s been great, and I really love the Bears,” said DJ Nate, who lives in a Chicago west suburb. “I’ve been a Bears fan ever since I was a kid, and it feels so great to see the Bears doing good this season.”
Asked why the Bears seem to be the coolest team in the league right now, longtime Bears fan and South Side native Larry Legend told The TRiiBE, “It’s because we’ve sucked for so long.”
“I think it’s a lot of Bears fans across the entire country for real. There’s celebrities that are super diehard Bears fans,” Legend said. Just recently, former Miami Heat and Chicago Bulls player Dwyane Wade has joined in on the public Bears praise, along with comedian Lil Rel who hails from the West Side. Even famed filmmaker Spike Lee attended the Bears v. Packers wildcard game at Soldier Field, and he’s a diehard New Yorker through and through.
“But people haven’t been this loud and boisterous about the Bears because we’ve always sucked” Legend added.
It didn’t hurt when Coach Johnson screamed “F-ck the Packers” after beating them in the wildcard game. That, along with his “Good Better Best” mantra, has had the city fired up.
“I think him saying ‘F-ck the Packers’ at this point in the year, that’s the confidence of a man who knows he’s got some years ahead of him,” CityCast Chicago host Jacoby Cochran said. “He knows, regardless of how this season ends, he’s going to be the coach of this team for at least a few more seasons.”
Cochran, who has been to a few games in the past, said nothing compared to the atmosphere at Soldier Field for Saturday’s game against the Packers. It was one of the best games in Bears history and the most streamed game in NFL history. “The collective effervescence of feeling connected to tens of thousands of people, just the adrenaline rushing through. I had never experienced anything quite like that moment,” he said.
“I’ve never even allowed myself to scream that loud,” Cochran continued. “ I never allowed myself to be involved in a collective sports moment that much. I felt like a little kid again.”
New Orleans rapper Lil Wayne, a known cheesehead, tried to come at Williams on X (formerly Twitter) after the Packers loss, but later took it back: “We just loss a playoff game to a nigga w purple nails we fkn suk bear azz! Bare ass!!!We don’t deserve to be in the playoffs. Straight like that.” Legend instantly jumped to Williams’ defense.
“We don’t need all of that from a guy with six dreads left,” Legend told The TRiiBE.
Just like Legend, the city is behind this Bears team. Fans are proud to walk the streets in their Bears gear.
“I’m out right now, and I’ve seen at least six Bears hats in a one mile walk, It’s crazy,” Legend said. He’s been a diehard Bears fan since 2001.
Chicagoans have a chip on their shoulders. It’s always been there, but we’re even louder about it when the home team is winning. Today, the Bears honored Williams with an ice sculpture outside of the Merchandise Mart in downtown Chicago.
No matter how this season ends, Chicagoans will never forget it.
“Being a fan here, living in Chicago all of these years, it’s a dope experience to be a part of, man, and Chicago deserves this,” former Bears defensive lineman Anthony “Spice” Adams told The TRiiBE at the ice sculpture unveiling. “Winning just makes everything that much better. You can see now. People are just yelling and clapping [while] walking down the street, if you got on a Chicago Bears shirt. [The team is] just bringing everybody together. So it’s important. Man, the city deserves it.”
Tiffany Walden and Corli Jay contributed to this story.
