Bear Digest

Connected web supporting Ben Johnson's Bears staff means early wins

Analysis: The Bears coaching staff of Ben Johnson for 2025 has been finalized and there are layers of experience supported by an interconnected web between coaches.
Gene Chamberlain|
Ben Johnson has built a connected group of Bears coaches with quality experience in the NFL.
Ben Johnson has built a connected group of Bears coaches with quality experience in the NFL. | Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

It's all about who you know.

The Ben Johnson Bears coaching staff or 2025 is finalized and the hiring process looks on the surface like a smashing success for two main reasons.

Delving beyond the importance of these two areas requires clairvoyance greater than mere mortal sportswriters possess.

The two vital measuring sticks are linkage and experience where it counts most. Successful experience counts even more. The Bears staff has all of this.

Matt Eberflus lost his job after following his hire of inexperienced offensive coordinator Luke Getsy, then followed the hiring of Shane Waldron when he could have hired Kliff Kingsbury or Liam Coen. He had experienced, connected defensive coaches, although very few had Super Bowl-winning experience. His offensive coaches were a collection of pieces from around the league, much like Matt Nagy's entire staff had been.

It's all different for Johnson. The obvious experience factor with Johnson's defensive coordinator Dennis Allen, a former head coach twice over six years and a very successful defensive coordinator for eight seasons after starting as an assistant in 2001, can't be denied. It's about as good as the situation Nagy fell into for only one year with Vic Fangio in 2018 as defensive coordinator.

Johnson could afford to hire Wunderkind type Declan Doyle as offensive coordinator because it's his own area of expertise and he's calling plays. But he fortified this area with hires like former offensive coordinators Press Taylor for passing game coordinator and Eric Bieniemy as running backs coach.

Backing all of that is a very experienced offensive line coach in Dan Roushar, who handled one of the league's more successful offensive lines in New Orleans. Eberflus thought they had the same thing with line coach Chris Morgan but it didn't quite work out the way they'd hoped.

Up and down the board with this staff, there are experienced position coaches and some are even backed by experienced assistants.

Jeremy Garrett, the defensive line coach, lacks experience at his position but they backed this up with the hire of Bill Johnson, senior defensive assistant/defensive line, with 18 years of NFL coaching experience.

Secondary coach Al Harris, the defensive passing game coordinator, successfully coached some of the league's better cornerbacks in Dallas. Linebackers coach Richard Smith was coaching in the league so long ago he was on the Houston Oilers staff.

The best sort of experience is winning experience and the Bears have assistants who were parts of Super Bowl winners with Taylor, Bieniemy, Allen, safeties coach Matt Giordano,

The inexperience issue really doesn't leak through at any level of the staff because what little there is has been protected by a buffer of experience.

Helping to fortify the buffer is an interconnected web of coaches. So many of the coaches had some sort of past experience with Johnson or someone he coached with that it's almost as if the entire staff knew each other and worked with each other in the past.

Doyle, Allen, Roushar, assistant offensive line coach Kyle DeVan, Bill Johnson, Giordano all had connections together through the Saints. Ben Johnson, receivers coach and assistant head coach Antwaan Randle El and QB coach J.T. Barrett all came to Chicago from Detroit.

There is even an interconnected Kansas City group with GM Ryan Poles, Harris and quality control coach Matt Aponte.

The interconnectivity is pulled together by Ben Johnson, whose experience with Lions coach Dan Campbell is something many of the former Saints coaches had. 

When so many coaches already know each other, it's easier to pick things up quickly at the outset and start out with wins.

If there is one noticeable danger with what they assembled, it's the possibility there are too many chefs in the quarterback kitchen. With Doyle, Barrett, QB assistant Robbie Picazo, Johnson and former NFL offensive coordinators Taylor and Bieniemy, there's that chance too many voices will drown out the message for Caleb Williams.

At least there will be messages. In so much of 2024, it seemed like he coached himself.

This full staff seems to make Johnson's Day 1 proclamation possible.

"Our mission, starting this spring, is to win and to win now," Johnson said.

They won't actually get to prove this is possible until fall. Then we'll know if this blend of seasoned veteran coaches with connectivity can pull it together fast enough to make a 5-12 record under last year's staff into a painful but distant memory.

Chicago Bears 2024 Coaches

Head coach: Ben Johnson

Defensive coordinator: Dennis Allen

Offensive coordinator: Declan Doyle

Special teams coordinator: Richard Hightower

Assistant head coach/wide receivers: Antwaan Randle El

Passing game coordinator: Press Taylor

Defensive passing game coordinator/DBs: Al Harris

Quarterbacks: J.T. Barrett

Offensive assistant/QBs and WRs: Robbie Picazo

Running backs: Eric Bieniemy

Offensive line: Dan Roushar

Offensive line assistant: Kyle DeVan

Tight ends: Jim Dray

Defensive line: Jeremy Garrett

Senior defensive assistant/defensive line: Bill Johnson

Linebackers: Richard Smith

Linebackers assistant: Kevin Koch

DBs/safeties assistant: Matt Giordano

Defensive assistant/nickel backs: Cannon Matthews

Special teams assistant: Anthony Blevins

Offensive quality control: Matt Aponte

Offensive quality control: Zach Cable

Defensive quality control: Kenny Norton III

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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.