Bear Digest

Five key storylines to begin Ben Johnson's first Bears training camp

It's Ben Johnson's show now and how he molds the Chicago Bears as a head coach will be a key theme throughout the 2025 season starting with Wednesday's first practice.
Gene Chamberlain|
Ben Johnson's first training camp promises to be full of intrigue from the first practice.
Ben Johnson's first training camp promises to be full of intrigue from the first practice. | David Banks-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

OTAs and minicamps are fine but the real competition begins Wednesday.

Ben Johnson’s first Bears team has been assembled piece by piece according to plans he helped create for GM Ryan Poles, and now they try to make the grand plans become reality on the field.

A season with great hope begins as players report today and Johnson tries to prove he is every bit the head coach he is as he was an offensive coordinator.

Here are the five top story lines for the Bears as they report to Halas Hall for training camp.

5. The promising rookie class

Last year's rookie class on offense generated excitement because it included a quarterback and wide receiver in Round 1. This one promises cause even more excitement because it includes more players at more offensive positions and they're players who could quickly fill roles as impact players or starters.

Colston Loveland most certainly will be working immediately with the first-team offense as the move-tight end. Luther Burden III will compete with Olamide Zaccheaus for first-team slot and Ozzy Trapilo figures prominently in first-team plans at left tackle. Then the carries, catch opportunities and pass blocks by seventh-rounder Kyle Monangai will take on more significance than camp reps by past seventh-round picks. It's not common for seventh-round picks to come in with the opportunity Monangai has to get carries with the first and second team.

This doesn't even consider the defensive rookies, and it wouldn't surprise anyone if linebacker Ruben Hyppolite or Shemar Turner stepped into rotational reps with the team.

The chance exists this is Poles' best draft class yet and many will have the chance to prove it immediately.

4. The aggressive defense

How this new approach relying on more blitzing, man-to-man coverage and an attacking group up front fit with the personnel assembled will be a huge point of emphasis.

Dennis Allen wants to get after offenses and did it successfully while he was Saints coordinator. It changed when he became head coach. Will it change back now that he's back in a coordinator role?

These Bears talk a lot about loving the chance to go one-on-one with top receivers, to blitz and to cave in the pocket from the inside out. They’re about to get the chance to prove they can do it in a scheme that lets players do something different than they've done the last three seasons.

Best Bears offensive line since...

This really could be their best offensive line from tackle to tackle since their second trip to the Super Bowl.

Cody Whitehair, Kyle Long after major surgery, Bobby Massie, Charles Leno Jr. and James Daniels never really realized their full potential together in 2018. The 2010 line had J'Marcus Webb
and Frank Omiyale as tackles, which explains some of the games when Jay Cutler took a beating.

This line has the best blocker the Bears have had since Long's first three years in Joe Thuney. Drew Dalman is their best center since Olin Kreutz. Both of their tackles were rated among the top 22 regular players at the position by Pro Football Focus last year. Guard Jonah Jackson was in a Pro Bowl when he was healthy.

Can they come together quickly and build the kind of cohesive blocking effort play-in and play-out required to carry a team on the ground and in the air? Much depnds on Braxton Jones' health situation because if he can't go, it all starts with a rookie or first-year player at a critical line position protecting Caleb Williams' blind side.

Johnson said it could take to the bye or beyond for this. Was he being overly pessimistic?

2. Caleb Williams’ Year 2 development

Mitchell Trubisky improved his passer rating from 77.5 to 95.4 in Year 2 and Justin Fields from 73.2 to 85.2.

It’s a common trend for a QB in Williams’ situation to improve the second time around even with a new attack, but his improvement should be even more obvious with Johnson as the head coach.

It’s often said Williams needs to get rid of the ball quicker. This isn’t necessarily true. What needs to get faster is his recognition of defenses, of when DJ Moore and Rome Odunze are actually open and his ability to execute anticipatory passes from the pocket.

If he does those, then the ball will naturally be coming out earlier.

Williams came in at 2.92 seconds according to NFL NextGen Stats. That’s not fast, but it was faster than  Brock Pudy (2.93), Justin Fields (3.04), Jalen Hurts (3.13) and LaMarr Jackson (3.14).

He’ll need to get it out in time—his own time.

The Ben Johnson Show

All eyes will be on Johnson all year: first head coaching job, same division as his old team, working with the quarterback whose statistics are said to be uncorrectable–because he’d rather play hero ball, it will all be on Johnson’s plate.

Johnson's scheming was a tremendous success with Detroit and there's no reason to think it couldn't be this way again, although that ability to work with second-year QB Williams has to be proven since he hasn't worked with an inexperienced passer.

He already has proven his value in working closely with Poles to bring in necessary talent.

Now it’s up to Johnson to prove he left Detroit with good knowledge of how to work with a young quarterback even though he hasn’t really done it.

Above all else, he must prove he is not simply another offensive coordinator who fails to make the transition to being a head coach, in the mold of Josh McDaniels or Nathaniel Hackett.

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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.