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Ben Johnson Often Guesses Right with Vikes' Brian Flores but It's a War

The Chicago Bears coach has the upper hand against Minnesota's gambling defensive coordinator but the bottom line is how Caleb Williams handles pressure.
Gene Chamberlain|
Brian Flores and Ben Johnson will match wits in another guessing game.
Brian Flores and Ben Johnson will match wits in another guessing game. | USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Connect

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Chicago Bears

The X's and O's of any battle between Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores and Bears coach Ben Johnson are better displayed on a computer screen. It truly is the stuff of the AI era.

A week after scoring 59 points, the Bears are facing a defensive mind who can short-circuit the best offenses, so Johnson has no illusions about outsmarting a team that blitzed 71.7% of the time against Green Bay per Pro Football Reference's count.

"You don't. You try to have answers for everything," Johnson said Wednesday at Halas Hall. "So yeah, I mean it's, he's been in this division three years now, and I mean you'd like to think he's put everything he could possibly do on tape until you play him next and you realize he hasn't yet.

"So it'll be something new. There always is with him and that's what makes him such a good coordinator. It's a great challenge. It really is. You have a lot of fun on game day. Now the week of preparation is not so much fun, but you know, there's a lot of back and forth that goes into it."

Caleb Williams has often talked about Flores with respect, but Johnson does have a record of success against the Vikings. It might come from knowing they're going to blitz, but last year the Vikings had one game when they blitzed at home and one where they blitzed sparingly
— by their standard — at Soldier Field.

"Oh yeah, it comes from all over the place," Johnson said. "He'll hit you in the A gaps. He'll hit you from outside the tackles. He likes to bring zero (all-out blitz) more than any other coordinator in this league and so there's in any situation, normal downs, second and long, third down, red zone, it really doesn't matter. He keeps you on your toes.

"So you, just as coaches, as offensive coaches, you take a lot of pride in giving the quartertback and the offensive players answers and solutions to whatever problems that could unveil themselves on gameday, well, when you go against a guy like this, you've got everything. So, that's where it's a lot. For our players, they have to really dedicate themselves over the course of the week to have success on gameday and fortunately I do think our guys, the way we train them is very demanding and very detailed with teams like this in mind."

Eventually it becomes a guessing game and mind-reading contest in which overevaluation can be a downfall. Often Johnson guesses right.
Johnson's teams have averaged 27.5 points against the Vikings and before he came to Chicago he had scored 30 or more against Flores three straight times. He was 3-1 against the Vikings with Detroit when Flores was coordinator. The Bears scored 24 and 19 last year but won 19-17 at Minnesota.

"I'm in that path right now I mean, there's a lot of that," Johnson said. "Man, end of the day, our guys, I want them to go out and play fast. I want to make sure we're sound."

Johnson spoke at length about fast starts before the season began, but this could become the type of game where there are adjustments and then counter-adjustments made.

"It's not very different than what we talked about a week ago, making sure we have a hat for a hat as often as we can, and if he gets us on something, that's fine," Johnson said. "Then we, we got to, you know, come together and make sure we get it corrected and we'll move on from there.

"This game will end up being some adjustments going on over the course of it. I might be in the tablet a little bit more than I'd like to over the course of the game, but that's how these ones have tended to go in the past."

It turned out that way in the Vikings-Packers game last week. The team who adjusted at the end won out. The Bears, as well as Johnson, will be tested.

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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.

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