Bear Digest

Ben Johnson lays down his course for immediate Bears success

The idea of slowly building up a foundation is not part of Ben Johnson's plan for the Bears as he sees the chance for immediate success with the current roster.
Gene Chamberlain|
Ben Johnson meets media at Halas Hall for his first press conference as Bears coach.
Ben Johnson meets media at Halas Hall for his first press conference as Bears coach. | David Banks-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

Whether it's the offensive side of the football or defense doesn't matter, new Bears coach Ben Johnson has arrived hitting the ground running and expects a fully competitive team his first season as an NFC North coach.

The stuff about taking a while to build a foundation up that was heard from the previous coaching regime had no place in the first exposure Bears fans had Wednesday to their team's new coach.

"There’s no question it can happen in 2025," Johnson said at his opening Halas Hall press conference. "It depends on how hard we’re willing to work and how much we’re willing to sacrifice."

Johnson already had the Bears earmarked for success going into the 2024 season, so they should be competitive from the start.

"Going into this season, I felt like this place was a sleeping giant," Johnson said. "To be honest with you, I personally was more concerned about the Chicago Bears than I was about anyone else in this division.

"Now, there is a number of reasons why that did not unfold, which is why I'm here, I'll get to the bottom of that. And we will see if we cant get corrected and cleaned up. But I was very encouraged with what was already on the roster right here. Like I said before, this division as hard as it is, really excited about competing here."

With Caleb Williams, Cole Kmet, Rome Odunze and DJ Moore on hand for Johnsons introduction to Chicago, Johnson said he doesn't expect the offense to look exactly like the one he ran in Detroit, but that would be the result of personnel. And he's very familiar with it from six years of facing them twice a year. In particular, he has an understanding of Williams.

"From afar, the ability for him to fit the ball into tight windows I think is a rare thing to see," Johnson said. "He's fearless playing that position. He’s got so much confidence in being able to not only throw outside the numbers but between the numbers.

"There’s just a lot to work with right there. I know you’re talking about what a player’s strength is. What excites me as a coach and what I’m gonna challenge our coaching staff to do is to find weaknesses within their game that we can work to develop and highlight. Something I’ve been a part of in the past and will implement here is, each guy is gonna have an individual action plan of what he’s put on tape, how we can get certain elements better. That’s already something we’re working on with Caleb right now. Whether he knows it or not, I don't know. He’s gonna find out when he comes in for the sprint. There are gonna be elements for the game we’re really gonna focus on him getting better at."

Johnson invoked the name of a failed coordinator from his past to describe what he'll be trying to accomplish.

"Philosophically, what I believe in is similar to a blast from the past, named John Shoop, and that is to make same things look different and different things to look the same," he said of the Bears offensive coordinator from 2000-2003, a close friend. "We want the defense on their heels, we are always going to be attacking on offense.

"We believe in multiplicity, that's both formationally and conceptually. We are going to make things very challenging on the defense each and every week. We want the ability to morph, whether it's 50 runs in a game or 50 passes in a game. It does not matter. Balance to me is throughout the entire season, not necessarily in the game."

He's not simply throwing down the Lions playbook and telling everyone to learn it, as he said.

"We have a completely different personnel group than what we did in Detroit," he said. "This entire offense is going to be predicated on the guys that we have available. That's going to take the springtime as well as training camp to hone in what it's going to look like."

And although he's an offensive side hire, he has given great thought already to his defensive players and what to expect after he said the Lions had trouble with the Bears' run defense.

"Personally, we struggled with that defense here for both games that we played them in 2023," Johnson said. "That was a huge deal, knowing that as much as I struggled staying up at night trying to attack this defense, I knew what that was capable of. And seeing all the weapons that they have on offense here was really, really encouraging."

Johnson set about immediately after talking with media Wednesday hiring a staff. Reports about Dennis Allen being the defensive coordinator hire are a bit premature but still likely to happen.

"I've never coached with Dennis," Johnson said. "I've never met him. But. I would tell you we faced that defense a year ago when he was in New Orleans and gained a lot of respect for it.

"I think everywhere he has been along the way, they have been a top third-down team, a top red zone team. So there are a lot of pillars about what he does schematically that would be appealing to me. He has worked with Aaron Glenn. he has worked with Dan Campbell. Both speak very highly of him. So he's on the list. But there are a number of really good candidates."

Last season players complained about lack of discipline and accountability under Matt Eberflus and his staff. The classic episode was Tyrique Stevenson after the Hail Mary pass and the staff's failure to properly penalize him.

They won't have to complain about this in 2025. Johnson already knows where he'd go with similar situations and it's the way players wanted it to go last year.

"We will set the standard in terms of what it looks like, what it should look like, what it shouldn’t look like," Johnson said. "Any time it's not hitting that standard and that mark, it will be put on us as a coaching staff to call guys out and repeat offenders will have to continue to be made an example of."

The bottom line will be making such examples unnecessary in season when they expect to compete instead of finish last for the eighth time in 12 years.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.