Ben Johnson Wants Bears’ Offense to Break 2013 Broncos’ Scoring Record

Ben Johnson isn’t just chasing a Super Bowl in his second season as Bears head coach. He’s chasing a number: 37.9.

That’s the points-per-game average the 2013 Denver Broncos put up behind Peyton Manning, still the highest scoring rate for a single season in NFL history. Johnson told the Bears he wants to beat it — and he’s not being shy about saying so out loud, according to Dan Pompei of The Athletic.

“You’ve got 31 other teams coming to training camp saying, ‘Our goal is to win the Super Bowl,'” Johnson said. “I want more than that. I want to have the highest-scoring offense ever, which happens to be the 2013 Denver Broncos. I know how many points per game they scored (37.9), and I want to surpass them. I want shutouts. I want blowouts.”

It’s a bold line from a coach who just finished his first year at Halas Hall. But Johnson isn’t speaking in a vacuum. Chicago’s 2025 offense already showed flashes of what he’s building toward, and the roster around quarterback Caleb Williams looks nothing like the one he inherited.

Williams and a Deeper Playbook Understanding

Year one was about installation. Year two is about execution.

Williams threw for a franchise-record 3,942 yards last season and led Chicago to an 11-6 finish, its first NFC North title since 2018, according to the Daily Herald. The Bears then knocked off the rival Green Bay Packers in the wild-card round before their season ended against the Los Angeles Rams.

That kind of jump matters here. Johnson’s scoring ambitions only make sense if Williams has actually absorbed the offense, not just survived it. And by all accounts, he has. Reporting from the Bears’ own team site describes a quarterback who spent this offseason connecting with rookie receiver Luther Burden III on long throws in 11-on-11 drills and building real chemistry with a scheme he’s now run for a full year, per ChicagoBears.com.

Chicago didn’t leave that development to chance. The front office spent five top-100 draft picks on pass catchers since 2024, giving Williams a receiving room that includes Rome Odunze, tight end Colston Loveland and Burden — none of them older than 24, according to Roundtable. The offensive line got the same treatment, retooled over back-to-back offseasons to keep Williams upright after he took a league-high number of sacks as a rookie.

Put together, it’s the infrastructure of a team that believes its ceiling is offense, not defense.

Why Johnson’s Number Isn’t Just Talk

Scoring 37.9 points a game for an entire season is an absurd bar. The 2013 Broncos hit it with Manning at the peak of his powers, throwing for 5,477 yards and 55 touchdowns behind one of the most efficient passing attacks ever built. Chicago isn’t there yet. But the pieces Johnson is pointing to — a quarterback in his second year of the same system, a retooled line, a young and talented group of targets — are the exact ingredients that typically precede a scheme clicking into gear.

Johnson’s offense already ranked in the top half of the league in yards per play for stretches of 2025, even while the Bears’ defense struggled. Take the offensive line issues out of the equation and give Williams a full offseason of continuity with the same play-caller, and the growth curve gets steeper. That’s the bet Johnson is making publicly.

Chasing Perfection, Not Just Points

Johnson didn’t stop at scoring records. He also referenced the 2003-04 New England Patriots’ 21-game winning streak as a target and brought up the idea of an undefeated season — something no team has managed since the league expanded to a longer regular-season schedule.

“Why can’t we do that?” Johnson said. “There has never been an undefeated season (since teams have been playing more than 14 regular-season games). The moon is the Super Bowl, but we’re shooting beyond that, for the stars. And I want these players to feel that each and every single day they come in.”

It’s the kind of quote that will get mocked if the Bears stumble out of the gate. Chicago opens the 2026 season on the road against Bryce Young and the Carolina Panthers on Sept. 13, a matchup between the last two No. 1 overall picks the Panthers and Bears have swapped since the 2023 draft-day trade that sent Chicago the pick used on Williams.

Johnson clearly isn’t worried about how the words age. Whether the Bears can back them up starts there, in Charlotte, in a little over a month.

Bears’ Points-Per-Game Chase: The Bar Johnson Is Setting

Note: The Bears’ exact 2025 points-per-game figure was not included in the available source material and was not independently located via search for this piece; it is left blank rather than estimated.