Chicago Bears’ head coaching missteps that led to Ben Johnson’s landmark hire

The Chicago Bears don’t have a good track record with their head coach choices. And that's putting it very politely.

Only two sideline generals in Bears history have taken their team to a Super Bowl, and only one of those two actually won the game.

It seems like the front office made the right call in bringing in former Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson as the franchise's 20th head coach on January 20, 2025—after all, the dude led an epic offense up in the Great Lake State—but how did we get here?

Let’s go over the Bears head coaching hires since Mike Ditka was let go in 1993:

Dave Wannstedt: 1993-1998

Regular Season Record: 40-56

Biggest Boo-Boo: Choosing DE John Thierry in the first round of the 1994 NFL Draft rather than Larry Allen, Isaac Bruce, or Kevin Mawae.

Dick Jauron: 1999-2003

Regular Season Record: 35-45

Biggest Boo-Boo: Believing that Cade McNown could be a starting NFL quarterback.

Lovie Smith: 2004-2012

Regular Season Record: 81-63

Biggest Boo-Boo: Losing Super Bowl XLI.

Marc Trestman: 2013-2014

Regular Season Record: 13-19

Biggest Boo-Boo: Screwing up both the locker room and the defense.

John Fox: 2015-2017

Regular Season Record: 14-34

Biggest Boo-Boo: Messing up Mitch Trubisky.

Matt Nagy: 2018-2021

Regular Season Record: 40-56

Biggest Boo-Boo: Way too much overly-cute offensive play calling.

Matt Eberflus; 2022-2024

Regular Season Record: 14-32

Biggest Boo-Boo: Tie between the Hail Jayden and the Thanksgiving Day Massacre.

Thomas Brown (interim) 2024

Regular Season Record: 1-4

Biggest Boo-Boo: Not being noticeably better than Eberflus.

Unless Johnson dips into the Shane Waldron/Luke Getsy playbooks, he’ll almost definitely improve upon his predecessors’ mostly-shoddy work. And Bears Nation couldn't be happier.