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Bear Digest

Give Ben Johnson Extra Time to Prepare and Here's What Bears Can Expect

The Bears fared well on a short work week against the Patriots but the exact opposite situation exists with Seattle. There are meaningful trends at work here.
Gene Chamberlain|
Bears coach Ben Johnson and staff look on during the first half of their 30-24 win over New England.
Bears coach Ben Johnson and staff look on during the first half of their 30-24 win over New England. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

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Chicago Bears

A day after Ben Johnson's Bears beat one half of the Super Bowl XL teams, he paused to look at what's coming with extra time now to prepare to face the other team from last year's title game, the Seahawks.

"Thought they did a really nice job; finding a way to get a win like that on a short week," Johnson said of his team. "Takes a lot of mental preparation over the course of a few short days to make sure we download the game plan and put it to life like they did.

"Credit to the staff as well for getting that job done and I’m looking forward to taking a step back and catching our breath here this weekend. Gives us a chance to evaluate where we're at personnel wise, schematically. Almost like a mini-bye week in a lot of regards also."

Is this necessarily good for the staff, though? The rest always helps players, no doubt. However, Johnson's ability to get the Bears ready for Thursday's win over New England with only a few days of work kept in line with a trend he has shown in coaching.

Now, he faces the opposite situation with the extended mini-bye weekend in his pocket. There's extra time for Seattle to prepare, as well. Seattle's extra time is very limited, though, since they're playing a Sunday night game with the Chiefs, followed by the Monday night game against the Bears.

A couple of trends are at work in this case for Bears fans to consider with their team, and also another with the Seahawks.

Seattle's excellence with extra time

The one trend with Seattle is how coach Mike Macdonald has been very good at getting his team ready when given extra time, even if it is just one extra day. Meanwhile, the same cannot entirely be said for Johnson with the Bears.

Macdonald is in his third season as Seattle coach, and during his tenure Seattle is 11-3 when he has more than the normal week to get the team ready for a game.

Considering Seattle missed the playoffs with a 10-7 record in his first year, was 3-3 this season going into Sunday night this season besides their 2025 Super Bowl season, the11 wins Macdonald has had with extra time accounts for a huge amount of their victories. Of the wins they've had under Macdonald, 40.7% came during a longer work week. This includes their playoffs and the Super Bowl last season.

Ben Johnson's record split

The other side, and of more concern for the Bears, is how Johnson's team has done when he had extra time. The Bears are only 3-4 in games when Johnson has extra time to get them ready.

Are they putting too much into game plans? Some of the opponents have been very strong, and that has to be taken into account, but 3-4 when your team is 17-9 in two seasons is not saying much for his ability to use the extra time wisely.

If there is a ray of hope here, it's how Johnson is trending up.

The Bears are 2-0 this season when he had extra time. They were only 1-4 last year.

The only win the Bears had last season when Johnson had extra time was their bye week and they needed a late Jayden Daniels fumble to beat Washington 25-24. They lost to the Rams in the playoffs with one less day to prepare after they had beaten the Packers. They also lost the season opener to Minnesota, their regular-season game to Green Bay following their Black Friday win over the Eagles, and then to the 49ers after they beat the Packers at Soldier Field in the regular season.

However, this year they beat the Eagles with an extra day to prep on Monday night, and also won their opener over Carolina with all offseason and preseason to prepare.

Much can go into these numbers beyond prep time, of course. The opponent and how they lost matters. For instance, they lost the game last year at San Francisco but no one is going to blame the way Johnson had the offense prepared. They had 38 points. It was the defense faltering.

Perhaps Johnson just needed time as the head coach to get the trend working his way. Another number says this could be the case. That one is how he did prepping his offense in Detroit when he had an extra day.

Although Johnson wasn't head coach, he was the coordinator who called plays and came up with game plans — with head coach Dan Campbell overseeing, of course.

The Lions were 13-4 when Johnson was offensive coordinator and had more than a week to prep. In fact, some of Detroit's most impressive offensive efforts occurred while Johnson had extra time to prepare and was a coordinator.

One of their biggest regular-season wins and blowouts was at Dallas in 2024 when they won 47-9 after they had extra time to get ready.

The great majority of Johnson's "40-burgers" over three seasons with Detroit came when he had extra time to get the offense ready. They scored 42 on Seattle, 41 at San Francisco, 42 against the Chargers in L.A., 40 against Carolina, and 41 at home against the Bears with extra time in victories. They also had 42 against Buffalo in a loss.

This could all work the Bears' way on Monday Night Football in Seattle, but something must give because Seahawks will have a similar trend working their way.

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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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