Bears are in the driver's seat

The Charter: A Chicago Bears Podcast

Chicago Sports Network

Football, Sports, Sports:football

4.4 • 699 Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ruthie Polinsky and Clay Harbor break down the Bears’ win over the Browns, focusing on what it means to take care of business with the playoff picture coming into sharper focus. They discuss the key takeaways from the performance, hand out game balls and examine how this win fits into the Bears’ path down the stretch. With the Bears in strong playoff position, they also outline potential clinch scenarios and break down what still needs to fall into place across the NFC North. The conversation then zooms out to the broader NFC playoff landscape before getting “Wired In” with a deep dive on Caleb Williams’ performance against Cleveland. From his two-touchdown day and signature throw to DJ to the milestones stacking up in his rookie season, Ruthie and Clay analyze what his growth says about the Bears’ ceiling. Plus, the latest trending storylines around the league — including injury news and Philip Rivers' near comeback against Seattle.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	What's up, everyone? Welcome back to the charter podcast brought to you by St. Xavier University.
0:09.6	I'm Ruthie Polinsky. He's Clay Harbor. The Bears are 10 and 4. Take down the Cleveland
0:15.7	Browns. Dominant fashion. 31 to 3, everything was working.
0:21.9	Left some points on the board, if you ask me.
0:24.4	Probably could have been a little more dominant
0:25.8	with the way the Cleveland Browns played that game.
0:27.9	Clay Harbor.
0:28.6	I want to get your immediate reaction, your immediate thoughts.
0:31.4	This is fun on a Monday.
0:32.9	I haven't even talked to you about this game yet
0:34.6	other than a couple of texts during the game.
0:36.7	So I'm just curious to get your overarching thoughts, generic.
0:41.6	The Bears are in the driver's seat to win the NFC North.
0:45.7	I mean, to me, this game just shows that the Bears are real.
0:49.6	You know, like it's not, they didn't beat a good team, the injuries.
0:53.2	You know, you could say a bunch of different stuff.
0:54.9	Shadur Sanders didn't play great.
0:57.4	But if you're a bad team or average team, some of these games, you're at home, you're coming off of a, you know, tough loss to a division rival.
1:06.5	You slip up and you don't play well, but they executed on offense, they executed on defense, and
1:11.8	they executed on special teams, three phases, everybody played well, 10 wins for the first
1:17.7	time since 2018, and there's three games left. So this is, I mean, just vibes are high. I think
1:23.9	this team with everything that happened within the division, with injuries with Green Bay,
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 20 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Chicago Sports Network, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Chicago Sports Network and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.