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‘The Brady Way’ Wasn’t a Good Enough Pitch for the Raiders to Land Ben Johnson

The Bears won the Ben Johnson sweepstakes because they have a quarterback.

Stephen Douglas

Tom Brady ahead of Ben Johnson’s final game with the Detroit Lions.
Tom Brady ahead of Ben Johnson’s final game with the Detroit Lions. / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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The Chicago Bears are hiring Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson to be their next head coach. Getting Johnson is considered a huge win for the organization and quarterback Caleb Williams is excited.

Johnson may be just as excited about Williams. According to The Athletic's Dianna Russini, one of the main reasons Johnson chose the Chicago job was because of their quarterback situation. Other jobs, like the Jacksonville Jaguars and Las Vegas Raiders, don't have such an appealing signal-caller.

Russini explained this during her weekly appearance on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz. And while she was talking about the Bears, she also revealed some details about the Raiders' pursuit of Johnson which apparently heavily involved FOX's Tom Brady.

"Everyone wants to know what happened," said Russini. "Was the Raiders just a play for him to get a better deal, more money? No. The Raiders were real. Tom Brady was a very convincing owner in trying to get Ben Johnson to go there 'cause they were going to make it the Brady way, but in the end... In the end, I think Johnson said I need the quarterback. Vegas doesn't have it."

This comes days after Brady, along with Kevin Burkhardt, called the final game of Johnson's tenure with the Lions. Burkhardt asked Brady about how he had evaluated Johnson and Aaron Glenn during the broadcast and the Raiders' minority owner had nothing to say about the process.

Certainly an interesting spot for a team owner. Apparently FOX isn't paying him enough to give any insight into what an NFL coaching search is like beyond, "The league is full of great potential. And what I believe is that the resumes, the accolades, they're all earned by what you do on the field."

Talk about a "very convincing owner."

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Stephen Douglas
STEPHEN DOUGLAS

Stephen Douglas is a senior writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He has worked in media since 2008 and now casts a wide net with coverage across all sports. Douglas spent more than a decade with The Big Lead and previously wrote for Uproxx and The Sporting News. He has three children, two degrees and one now unverified Twitter account.

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