Bear Digest

The qualities Ben Johnson requires from coming Bears staff hires

New Bears coach Ben Johnson realizes it won't hurt to add coaches who have been around the track a few times to complement his own relative inexperience.
Gene Chamberlain|
Dennis Allen shakes hands with Andy Reid following a Saints game against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Dennis Allen shakes hands with Andy Reid following a Saints game against the Kansas City Chiefs. | Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

Ben Johnson knows what he doesn't know.

It's a way of indicating how the new Bears coach sees the need for experience on his coaching staff considering his own lack of it as a head coach.

The Bears coach set about trying to piece together his staff on Wednesday after his first press conference. He couldn't deny interest in Dennis Allen as defensive coordinator and Adam Schefter has called Allen the leading candidate, but there has been no official hiring and the Bears were reported to be set to interview Rams defensive passing game coordinator and assistant head coach Aubrey Pleasant.

Although Pleasant is not an experienced defensive coordinator like Dennis Allen, he has been in the league 13 years and either of those would offer something Johnson sees the need for on his staff.

"There's no question that experience–whether it's coordinators or elsewhere–within the coaching staff will be important to me," Johnson said. "That's why I look forward here after we get through this initial madness if you will. We can get going on the coaching staff.

"That's going to be a critical part of our success. I really believe that we're going to be able to find some great candidates out there that, that want to come to Chicago for a number of reasons. They will be able to help guide and show me the way."

Allen has six years experience as head coach of the Raiders and Saints, eight years as Saints defensive coordinator and one year in Denver.

Johnson doesn't see his own experience as inadequate,  particularly because of the wide range of success and failure he's endured. It's just they could use the experience.

"The good news is this: I'm not coming necessarily from a program that has solely won for the last 10 years. What I've seen in my time in the NFL, seven years with Miami, six years in Detroit, is as much not good as I've seen good. There are a number of things that I've experienced and I've seen that should help throw the red flag up and help me avoid those potential pitfalls."

That could mean experienced assistants currently with the Bears.

"I've been a part of two staffs now as an assistant coach that was let go, and it's really important that I meet with particular guys already under contract here," Johnson said. "There are a number of really good coaches that have been here the last few years that I’d love to meet with, but out of respect for them, I would love to let them know where they stand moving forward as soon as possible."

Johnson knows how they feel because he went through it when the Dolphins hired Brian Flores. It meant he was without work.

"We had just had our second child," Johnson said. "What really should have been the best time in my life because I was still getting paid to live in a phenomenal climate with two young kids. I would've been able to sink in as a father and a husband in a profession where that rarely happens. Truthfully I was in my darkest moment because something that I loved got ripped away from me.

"I'd invested all time and effort over seven years, three more up at Boston College, and when something like that gets ripped away from you, it makes you search deep in your soul. But fortunately an opportunity arose and the good Lord was looking out for me. It’s a little bit of humble pie having to take a step back to start over again and be a quality control coach, but you just trust, you put your head down and you work, and fortunately good things happened."

Then it seemed about to happen again in Detroit when Matt Patricia got fired but Johnson was one of the lucky ones retained from the staff by Dan Campbell, who knew him from Miami's staff.

The qualities Johnson seeks in an offensive coordinator are a bit different because it's a job not requiring someone who calls plays. Johnson will do this.

"It's going to be critical for me to find somebody that can organize and structure and set the table particularly early in the week," Johnson said. "I've been around a number of guys that have called plays in the past, and I've seen the potential pitfalls that could arise as you're coaching the entire football team and you can't get to watching as much tape early in the week as you possibly could."

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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.