Bears' Ben Johnson Still Trails Dan Campbell in One Critical Fourth-Down Area

Ben Johnson's Bears were less aggressive and less efficient on fourth down in 2025, a flaw Chicago must fix to unlock Caleb Williams in Year 2 of the offense.

Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson looks on during Minicamp at Halas Hall. Mandatory Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images | Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

Though he was hardly the first NFL head coach to push an aggressive style of offense, Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell made going for it on fourth down a wildly popular tactic. According to Pro Football Focus, Dan Campbell's Lions have been the NFL's most aggressive team on fourth down since 2021, going for it 198 times in that span.

Naturally, when Campbell's vaunted offensive coordinator Ben Johnson became head coach of the Chicago Bears last year, that fourth down aggression was expected to follow Johnson to Chicago. It may surprise you to learn then that not only was Chicago less aggressive on fourth down than Detroit, but they attempted even fewer fourth down conversions than they had in 2024 under Matt Eberflus and Thomas Brown.

Ben Johnson's fourth down offense lags behind both his former boss and his predecessor

Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson looks on during warmups before a game. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-Imagn Images | David Banks-Imagn Images

While the numbers aren't terrible for Chicago, plenty of meat was left on the bone on fourth down attempts in 2025. The Bears attempted 29 fourth down conversions but were only successful 15 times. Contrast that with Detroit, who went for it 31 times and picked up 18 first downs. In 2024, Chicago actually attempted 38 fourth down conversions, second-most in the NFL, and were successful 23 times.

Team	4th Down Attempts	4th Down Conversions	Conversion Rate	Average Distance to Go
Bears (2025)	29	15	51.7%	2.55 yards
Bears (2024)	38	23	60.5%	4.34 yards
Lions (2025)	31	18	58.1%	2.19 yards

To be fair, Chicago's 2024 numbers appear to be a bit anomalous. Succeeding on 60.5% of their fourth down attempts with an average distance of 4.34 yards to go is an absurd clip, and almost certainly not repeatable. However, it still seems odd that a head coach who came from a highly aggressive system did not go for the first down more often. Thirteen other teams had more attempts than the Bears in 2025, including the Lions.

How the Bears can do better on fourth down

Chicago Bears QB Caleb Williams passes the ball against the Detroit Lions. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-Imagn Images | David Banks-Imagn Images

The only notable difference between Chicago's fourth down success in 2025 versus Detroit's is the average distance. It's a small gap between 2.19 yards to go and 2.55 yards to go, but that could partly explain why Detroit picked up a few more first downs than Chicago did. However, that's not significant enough to excuse Chicago's lackluster performance.

How can the Bears improve? Besides getting into more fourth-and-short situations, they'll need better quarterbacking. Caleb Williams was very good in 2025, but there's no denying that he has plenty of room to grow, and that includes fourth down passing. He attempted 20 passes on fourth down and completed just 10 of them. The Lions' Jared Goff threw almost the same number of fourth down passes (19), but he completed 14 of them.

That's not to say that all the blame goes to Caleb Williams. There were times when receivers dropped catchable balls in these situations or even ran the wrong routes. That's what happened in the Bears' Wild Card game against the Packers. While driving into Green Bay territory in the second quarter, Williams targeted Burden on fourth down along the left sideline, but Burden misunderstood his assignment and the pass was picked off.

Ben Johnson, too, deserves some blame for his decision-making, most notably in the Bears' heartbreaking Divisional round loss to the Rams. The Bears came away empty on their opening drive after Johnson dialed up a deep shot on fourth down as opposed to taking a chip shot field goal. Later, Johnson again eschewed a makeable field goal attempt to call two inside runs on third-and-one and fourth-and-one. Considering how that game ended, it's easy to see how these decisions may have altered the outcome.

The Bottom Line

Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson during the 2026 NFL Annual League Meeting. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

In fairness to Ben Johnson, Caleb Williams, and the offense, the 2025 season was Year 1 of a new, notoriously complex system. Growing pains were to be expected, and even with their struggles, they still won 11 games, clinched the NFC North division title, and won their first playoff game in 15 years. Nitpicking fourth down success when compared to a fifth-year head coach like Dan Campbell almost feels tacky.

Nevertheless, it's still an important area of growth for the Bears in 2026. As aforementioned, taking the points in their Divisional round game could have punched their ticket to the NFC Championship game; from there, anything is possible.

That's what makes this year's training camp so important for the Bears. Last year at this time, the offense was drowning as it struggled to learn another new scheme and playbook. But now that they're in Year 2 of Ben Johnson's tenure, they should be able to spend more time on the finer points of their offense and hopefully build a true Super Bowl contender.

If Johnson likes what he sees from his offense in July and August, he may be more inclined to attempt more fourth down conversions in 2026. From there, it falls on the players to execute the gameplan. That's a lot of 'ifs' there, but I don't doubt that these Bears can get to that point.

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