B737-800
Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Multiengine
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Inflight Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
Flight Crew Requested ATC Assistance / Clarification
Aircraft
Upon gear retraction; after departure from [Runway] XXL at ZZZ; we heard a loud bang in the nose wheel well with an associated yaw of the aircraft. A burnt rubber smell was also detected and dissipated after 5 minutes. My thoughts ranged from; 'something hit us' to 'we blew a nose tire.' All engine and hydraulic indications were normal and the plane was flying fine with no control problems. I decided we had no immediate safety of flight issues and we continued the climbout. At 25;000 feet I had the First Officer take the radios and I messaged dispatch that I wanted to talk to Flight Operations. The Dispatcher and I talked briefly on the SATCOM and he put me on hold to get Flight Operations online. While waiting I ran through the QRH to see if there was a procedure for this issue and found 'Tire Failure.' That seemed to most agree with the possible problem and I was pleased to see that it called for us to proceed normally to the destination since that's what we were doing. Discussing what we knew with Flight Operations we all agreed that the problem was probably the tire and proceeding normally was the action we would take. Flight Operations also said they would call the Tower and Approach control to let them know we might have an issue.After level off the 'A' Flight Attendant came to the cockpit and asked if we heard a bang on takeoff. She said some of the 1st class passengers asked her if we were alright and she said that she was able to reassure them that we were. I told her what we suspected and that I would brief the FA's (Flight Attendants) near top of descent.We had plenty of time and I didn't want to get caught unawares so the FO and I briefed various scenarios and reviewed checklists including 'manual gear extension' and ' partial or all gear up landing'. By the time we were ready to brief the arrival I felt prepared to handle any scenario.Unrelated to the wheel issue; about halfway to ZZZ2 the FO fwd window overheat-light illuminated. We ran the checklist and never got it back so; knowing we had clouds and probably ice to descend through I opted to do the landing. I had considered it anyway; but that clinched it. Sure enough the FO's window was opaque until about the outer marker.ATC was ready for us thanks to the Flight Operations phone call. They set us up for [Runway] YYL and slowed us to 170 around ZZZZZ [Intersection]. I put the gear down at that time to give us some breathing room if it didn't come down. The nose gear was the first to show down and locked and I relaxed a bit. We told tower we anticipated a normal landing but they still asked for souls and fuel; which we gave them. They had an operations vehicle shadow us to check for debris. Touchdown was normal and the nose wheel felt fine when it made contact so we told Tower we could taxi in unaided.We were met by the ops manger and several mechanics. Disappointingly; the nose wheel and the well area looked perfectly normal. After all that build up; I admit I wanted to see some torn metal or bits of tire. It will be interesting to see what maintenance discovers.What I can say I learned from this; is that we have a solid system of communication at (Company).  The call to ATC by Flight Operations and Dispatch saved us a lot of on air negotiation for 16L. My FO contributed many helpful thoughts that aided our preparation for just about any gear scenario. The FA's took the news of a possible irregular landing calmly and knew what roles they would play should things get sticky. Although it all turned out to be much ado about nothing; it was a good test of the system and the system works.
B737-800 flight crew aircraft reported aircraft yaw and a loud bang in the nose wheel well during gear retraction. Additionally; the FO's forward window had an overheat issue.