Bear Digest

Where Ben Johnson saw fault on the Jordan Love concussion play

The Bears coach offered his perspective on the play when Austin Booker's hit forced Jordan Love from the game due to a concussion.
Gene Chamberlain|
Austin Booker's sack of Jordan Love causes a concussion in Saturday's 22-16 Bears overtime win.
Austin Booker's sack of Jordan Love causes a concussion in Saturday's 22-16 Bears overtime win. | Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

Bears coach Ben Johnson had a unique and even surprising view on several problems the Bears had against the Packers, including one incident Green Bay fans have been angry about on social media.

After the game, Johnson expressed some frustration over the team's 10 penalties, especially the 15-yarders for unsportsmanlike conduct or roughing the passer. Defensive end Austin Booker drew a pair of roughing-the-passing penalties and one caused the concussion to Packers quarterback Jordan Love.

After film review on Monday, Johnson's concern over penalties remained high, but he wasn't necessarily hanging Booker out for shame due to the hit causing the concussion during the sack attempt.

In fact, he definitely doesn't want to see the Bears backing down from contact.

"We don’t want to shy away from that," Johnson said on Monday. "We want to play aggressive and we want to be a very physical team, but at the same time we can’t hurt the team and that happened a number of times. It’s not OK.

"Those 15-yard penalties, they really add up. I think we ended up having four of them on the game."

There were two roughing-the-passer penalties on Booker, one unnecessary roughness penalty on Jaquan Brisker for his hit on backup QB Malik Wills after he began to slide, and one unnecessary roughness on linebacker D'Marco Jackson.

"I talk about Booker’s against Jordan Love, that’s 100% a flag where he ends up getting concussed and that’s not what anybody wants," Johnson said.

Then the point of interest. Johnson doesn't believe this was necessarily Booker's entire fault.

"But at the same time that one is a more difficult one to coach just from a technique perspective just because we’re trying to go after the quarterback and it’s a bang-bang play like that," Johnson said. "All the other 15-yarders, as far as I’m concerned, those are all preventable and at times egregious. We can’t do that."

Packer fans were practically ready to have Booker suspended, fined, and practically banned for life from the league following the hit.  Yet, Johnson labeled that hit different than the others because it wasn't as preventable. This  clears Booker from some malfeasance, at least in Johnson's mind.

He cited the intensity of the rivalry as a reason for some of the other penalty issues.

"I think that might’ve had something to do with it and you know we talked about you get in these big games and you can get a little big emotional because it’s a division rival and you want to make an impact," Johnson said.

The Bears did lead the NFL in roughing the quarterback prior to that game.

Caleb Williams' grounding flag

Nor did Johnson join in any kind of dogpile on quarterback Caleb Williams for the intentional grounding call that nearly got the ball moved out of kicker Cairo Santos' range in the fourth quarter. Santos made a 51-yarder in strong, gusting crosswind, anyway.

Instead, Johnson found some fault with the officials.

"Well, it starts with the (pass) protection," Johnson said. "There was no reason for us to be leaking in protection as far as I’m concerned there. We got to do a better job with our communication up front, quarterback, running back, that’s where it starts.

"Beyond that, we had an out-breaking route to OZ (Olamide Zaccheaus) and Caleb was under the impression that as long as we have a receiver outside of the numbers, we can throw that ball out of bounds and they’ll deem him within the vicinity. The official on the sideline did not feel like OZ was outside of the numbers when we were throwing that ball. So, yeah, we don’t want that to happen and certainly in weather like that, every 5 or 10 yards makes a major difference in terms of us being able to hit that field goal. And so don’t want those. A number of things we can do better there. And thank goodness we have Cairo."

One other sequence of plays especially irritated Johnson and for that he blamed himself.

The clock management near the two-minute warning, when the Bears rushed Santos and the field goal team on was a near disaster corrected by Josh Blackwell's recovery of an onside kick.

Prior to the field goal that preceded the onside kick, the Bears simply used up too much time and went past the two-minute warning. That meant they couldn't stop the clock enough times with their timeouts and the two-minute stoppage to get the ball back for their offense and they had to try the onside kick.

"I think that we operated fairly quickly, but yet, the number for us, we really want to score before the threshold," Johnson said. "We didn’t really quite hit that. So we knew, at one point, we were going to have to go with the onside kick and hope for a recovery there.

"What I’m not pleased with is I think there’s 2:44 left and I think we could’ve handled that third down into fourth down better as an offense and as a special teams unit. And that’s on me. That a 100% on me. I have to do a better job coaching that with all the players involved, all the coaches involved, and, uh, I think we’ll be better for that going forward."

The explanation made it even more clear where he felt his own fault caused problems.

"I don’t want to put our field goal unit in that position to start with, with the clock running like that, so, ideally, that third-down throw is either past the sticks or it’s clearly going to be out of bounds, to where we’re not having a running clock and we’re forcing our field goal unit out there, and I can do a better job communicating that we need to kick that thing as soon as we possibly can."

Officials' part in this

The officials even entered into this situation.

"That being said, you know, they’re getting the K-ball in there (to kick)," he said. "At one point that things was fumbling around on the ground, and the umpire stood over the ball for a longer period of time than I had hoped for, and so we weren’t able to get the kick off nearly as quickly as I had foreseen in my head. And, so, um, there were a number of things that had happened there."

A total of 40 seconds ran off the clock from the time DJ Moore caught a 5-yard pass until they snapped the ball for the field goal with 2:04 left. With the running clock, time ticked down past the 2:00 mark to 1:59 and this removed the ability for the Bears to stop the clock enough times because they had only two timeouts.

In the end, he was grateful for Santos again, as the kicker's onside kick, Romeo Doubs' inability to handle it, and Blackwell's recovery gave the Bears the rare onside kick recovery and a chance to force overtime.

Only about 5% of onside kicks had been recovered in the first half of the NFL season.

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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.