Bear Digest

Super geniuses: Ben Johnson and Dennis Allen lauded for wizardry

For the first time in ages or maybe ever, the Bears coaching staff is being viewed as tricky and even innovative based on past performances.
Gene Chamberlain|
Ben Johnson's play sheet might contain more imagination than a J.K. Rowling book, from one Bears DB's description.
Ben Johnson's play sheet might contain more imagination than a J.K. Rowling book, from one Bears DB's description. | Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

A season after fans wondered about the collective IQ of Bears coaches due to disastrous late-game decisions, their new coaches are being painted as super geniuses.

It's been a long time since this happened. In fact, it's probably never happened. Even Mike Ditka's methods were never credited for the Lombardi Trophy as much as the fire he instilled in the team.

Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson on Monday called Ben Johnson's creativity something he can't wait to see at work, and one other new Bears coach also received credit along the same lines.

The "stumble bum" play executed against the Bears defense captured Johnson's eye even though he was trying to stop it.

"I mean, even with the trick plays people think it's just a fun thing but I think he just schemes it up perfectly," Johnson told the panel on Fox Sports' The Facility.

The "stumble bum" play was born from the 2023 Packers game when a Green Bay fumble hit the ground and the Bears reacted to a man by coming up hard after the ball. So Johnson had Jared Goff fake a fumbled toss in the backfield and the Bears fell for it, resulting in a Sam LaPorta easy touchdown catch.

'Just his details to think that that he would go back and watch that tape against Green Bay and to see how we reacted against that, and then created a play and a trick play off of that is amazing," Johnson said. "So, I mean you just kind of can see where his mind is, how he can draw things up and a coordinator like that makes it tough."

Johnson was the player who reportedly stood up in the locker room and hollered at Matt Eberflus after his final game as coach in Detroit. Neither he nor other defensive players were happy with coaches who didn't hold people accountable.

Now he's all in on the new coach.

"I think with B.J. coming in and the guys on offense I don't think there's nothing that we don't have," Jaylon Johnson said. "Of course, we can beef up the front, but for the most part we've got everything that we  need to be able to contend."

The other coach being praised for innovation and leadership was defensive coordinator Dennis Allen, but it was not by Johnson. ESPN analyst Matt Bowen made an appearance on AM-670's Speigel & Holmes Show and called Allen a dynamic defensive force, back into the last decade, ".. and this was in 2018, 19, 20 when Dennis Allen had one of the best defenses in the NFL, and what he used to do to Tom Brady when Tom Brady was in Tampa Bay," Bowen said.

When the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl, they lost twice in the regular season to Sean Payton, Allen and the Saints 34-23 and 38-3. They won the rematch in the divisional playoffs 30-20.

The next year, the Saints beat Brady's team again twice, 36-27 and 9-0. After Payton left in 2022 and Allen became head coach, the Buccaneers won both games but Brady and the offense had problems in 20-10 and 17-16 wins. It took five turnovers by the Saints offense for the Buccaneers to pull out the 20-10 win.

"Now you're talking about high-level scheme and a high-level player deployment," said Bowen, a former NFL safety for the Rams, Packers, Redskins and Bills. "That's what you're going to see out of this defense: a lot of multiple fronts, a lot of stunts, a lot of overload pressure to get home to the quarterback and your safeties have to be interchangeable in this defense but that is the position you want to play.

"That's a play-making position in this defense because they'll do a lot of two-high shells, they'll rotate or spin down late, they'll cut crossers, they'll rob in the middle of the field, they'll put their safeties in a position to make plays on the ball. On the outside at the corner position he wants physical, aggressive corners that can play press, that can open and run and that can challenge consistently."

It sounds like anything but the normal Tampa-2 and dropping to stay at their landmark in a zone like the Bears used to do.

Much like on offense, it will be a new look, a new beginning.

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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.