CHICAGO — Welcome to Chicago, Ben Johnson.

You were hired eight months ago, but Monday night was your initiation into the Chicago Bears Experience.

And man, your first game as head coach had it all. Patchy grass, a blown lead, a pregame statement about a new stadium that doesn’t exist yet, kicking miscues, airmailed throws, plenty of penalties, fans booing the team off the field as time expired and, of course, an appearance by the 1985 Bears.

The Bears’ 27-24 loss to Minnesota wasn’t inexplicable or unbelievable. It was explicable. It was believable.

There was magic in the air at Soldier Field. As in the Bears had the game in hand and then, poof, a W turned into an L.

“I think you certainly feel it when you’re on the sideline there,” Johnson said. “You got it moving, got it going, then all of a sudden it starts going backwards.”

Momentum might not be real, but as Johnson said, collectively, everyone in the stadium, from the VIPs to the elevator operators, knew what was happening in the fourth quarter as local boy J.J. McCarthy rallied the Vikings from a 17-6 deficit and the Bears didn’t have an answer. One minute, the Bears are up, and the next, tight end Cole Kmet is in front of his locker trying to figure out what to say about another loss.

“I’ve actually had my fair share of opening day wins,” Kmet said. “And down the road, they end up not meaning as much as you think they do. So hopefully that’s the case with this one.”

The Bears won their season opener at home last year, for instance, and a few more games at Soldier Field before everything went to holy hell. They’ve now lost six straight at home.

Just because the Bears have a new coach in Johnson doesn’t mean a team that has won 15 games in the last three years combined is going to turn into the 2024 Detroit Lions overnight. Give the Bears a month or two before you write them off.

“This is the start,” Williams said, “but definitely not the end.”

The start of the Johnson era was a thing of beauty. The first drive was economical, almost surgical. Williams went 6-for-6 and was in rhythm. On third-and-5 from the Vikings’ 30, he scrambled right and zipped a pass up the sideline to Rome Odunze. It was the kind of throw that got him drafted No. 1. On third-and-6 from the 9, Williams ran it in himself. Despite starting all 17 games last season, this was somehow his first rushing touchdown.

But then things went back to the old, tired normal. The Bears wouldn’t score another touchdown until they were down 10 points with 2 minutes, 2 seconds left in the game and Williams found Odunze alone in the end zone on a nifty play from the 1-yard line.

Chicago led 10-6 at the half and was up 17-6 early in the third quarter after cornerback Nahshon Wright intercepted McCarthy’s underthrown pass to Justin Jefferson and raced for a 74-yard touchdown. The fourth quarter began with Bears kicker Cairo Santos missing a 50-yard field goal, and it quickly went downhill from there. Behind a now-calm McCarthy, Minnesota kept scoring and the Bears couldn’t muster any response on either side of the ball. The defense looked gassed and the offense looked lost.

The lights were bright for “Monday Night Football,” and they exposed the Bears.

“In those moments it doesn’t necessarily come down to somebody doing anything outstanding,” said Williams, who completed his first 10 passes but finished 21-for-35 for 210 yards and one touchdown. “It doesn’t come down to anybody doing anything out of character. It comes down to being able to go out there and be together, all 11 on the field doing our job at one time as soon as the ball is snapped.”

The run game is supposed to be a strength of Johnson’s offense, but it didn’t show up on Monday. Williams led the team with 58 rushing yards, while D’Andre Swift (17 carries for 53 yards) found himself running into a wall of Vikings defenders for most of the night.

“The running game, I didn’t feel the rhythm as I was calling it,” Johnson said. “There was some good, some not quite so good. Didn’t seem like we were all on the same page the whole time. Like I said, that’s a reflection of me as much as anything else.”

Penalties (12 for 127 yards) just killed the Bears’ chances. And while some of the flags looked questionable, the operational failures on display were the same kind of errors that plagued the team in training camp. In the locker room, the players bemoaned their lack of discipline.

“That’s kind of the game of football itself, who can be more disciplined throughout the course of the game, and we just weren’t in those scenarios,” Kmet said.

After their opening drive for a touchdown — which they didn’t do one time last season — their drives went: punt, turnover on downs, punt, field goal, punt, punt, missed field goal, punt, punt, touchdown, end of game.

Johnson’s arrival was supposed to be the start of a new narrative for the Bears, but instead it read like just another chapter in the same sad story.

(Photo: Patrick McDermott / Getty Images)