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What Ben Johnson Explained About Bears Coaches Means Accountability

Year 2 doesn't mean players are the only ones who need to be on their Ps and Qs when work begins, as much will also be expected from the coaching staff.
Gene Chamberlain|
Bears defensive line coach Jeremy Garrett explains drills to prospects at the combine. Members of the Bears staff will no doubt be more heavily scrutinized with a second year working in the system.
Bears defensive line coach Jeremy Garrett explains drills to prospects at the combine. Members of the Bears staff will no doubt be more heavily scrutinized with a second year working in the system. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

Bears coach Ben Johnson either dove on the grenade, or really thinks his coaching staff's skills can change drastically overnight, or he is right there with GM Ryan Poles in maintaining players are better than people have given them credit for being.

The answer likely is D, all of the above.

After the team failed to draft an edge rusher and didn't find a defensive tackle until Round 6—and then a foreign-born player who is more of a project than immediate contributor—Johnson addressed how they expect to improve one of the team's least productive areas.

"Well, we're certainly going to coach better than we did a year ago," Johnson said. "And like I said before, it starts there.

"We've made a concerted effort in how we're going to get that done."

At that point in his comment, he almost sounded like defensive line coach Jeremy Garrett and/or coordinator Dennis Allen might be facing heavy scrutiny for job performance.

Dayo Odeyingbo and Shemar Turner both finished on IR and their return to join Montez Sweat and Austin Booker is not guaranteed immediately because both had serious injuries, although GM Ryan Poles claimed they're doing well in recovery.

"We are excited about the guys that ended up finishing the season on IR, the trajectory that they were on, both and Shemar," Johnson said. "When you look at it from the start of the season to the point where they both got injured, we saw growth and we saw them trending in the right direction, in terms of what we want to see on game day."

Johnson didn't need to be critical of Sweat and Booker because both had above-average numbers but the way the Bears use their edge rushers requires a rotation of three or four every game.

"The combination of us being able to coach better and those guys taking the next step as part of this system, I think we have some pretty good pieces to work with," Johnson said.

The coaching aspect of his comment continued to seem rather vague but Johnson specified what he meant. He didn't intend it to be throwing anyone under the bus, but ...

"Well, that's the deal when you're a first-year staff; not everything is going to look the way that you want it to look," Johnson said. "It didn't matter if it was offense or defense. Fortunately, Coach (special teams coordinator Richard) Hightower had been here, so he had had a lot of time on task with a number of guys in his unit. But, for us on offense and defense, you look at the self scout, and it doesn't look the way we want it to look.

"So, to me, that's a reflection of coaching. We've made a concerted effort, on both sides of the ball there, to make sure that we're going to get it to look more the way that we want it to look. That's natural. I don't think Year 1, when I was a first-year play-caller, did it look the way it looked in Year 2 or Year 3. That's natural. That’s how you get better. We're always striving to improve. I think the things that we emphasize, we're going to see improvement at."

A better fit all the way around

While it doesn't look the way they want, it wasn't entirely on the coaching staff. Poles said they aimed the draft process at aggressively finding the exact fit for their schemes, and Johnson believes they did bring in more of these fits.

"I think we're still finding our type of guys," Johnson said. "So that was important for us.

"You would hope from Year 1 to Year 2 with this coaching staff and the personnel department, we're so much further along than we were a year ago at this time. So that's what's encouraging to me and Ryan and really look forward to seeing these guys hit the grass here in a couple weeks.”

On-field work will be the week of May 27, although rookies get their indoctrination at a rookie camp May 8.

Coaches must be better too

Johnson did eventually get to the point about the staff, and it does sound as if accountability will be greater.

"I'm going to start with continuity with the coaching staff because I really do think the ability for us as a group of guys, a lot of which we hadn't coached together before, looking to unify that vision and bring it to life the way that we did last fall," Johnson said. "We're going to be so much better off having gone through the cut-ups. I know we've really refined and made it a big effort here this springtime already to get the fundamentals and techniques to another level in terms of how we're teaching it and how we're coaching it.

"And so, I think it really starts there, at least from my lens. I think we'll be better teachers of not only the scheme, but also just the vision of what we want our brand of football to look like."

Saying they're going to be so much better is akin to saying they had better be improvd.

Bringing a last-place team from four straight seasons without a playoff berth to a division title using players who were not all exact scheme fits, and doing it with coaches unfamiliar with the staff, scheme, and roster is in itself an accomplishment.

Even if not all of the coaches got the same level of production last year, Johnson painted a picture where it's reasonable to assume there will be better numbers this year.

If not, they've already shown they're willing to change up even veteran players for better roster fits.

And if they're willing to do that, it's safe to assume some staff members will be under the same scrutiny to pick up their position room's production this year or face fates similar to those underperforming players could experience.

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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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