Chicago Bears fans don’t need any more proof that Ben Johnson is the perfect coach for this team. But I’m sure you won’t say no to some more.
ESPN’s Bill Barnwell put together his rankings of the best head-coaching hires of the last five years—a total of 37 overall. And guess who has already cracked the top 10 after just one season on the job?
You guessed it. The man who brought us “Good, Better, Best.” “The prodigy,” as Barnwell put it when he slotted Johnson in at No. 8 overall, just ahead of Jim
Harbaugh with the Chargers and Kevin O’Connell with the Vikings. (Johnson’s mentor, Dan Campbell, took the top spot on the list.)
“Bears fans treated Johnson like a superstar addition when they landed the Lions’ offensive coordinator as their next head coach, and so far, he has generally lived up to the hype. There have been game management issues, especially early in the season, but Johnson quickly built one of the league’s best run games and helped refine quarterback Caleb Williams‘ game,” Barnwell wrote.
“The Bears benefited from excellent timing and good fortune late in games in 2025, which might not stick around, but I’m not sure you can find a single Bears fan on the planet who is upset with the decision to hire Johnson after one season.”
Even more impressively: Johnson joined Mike Vrabel, who just took the New England Patriots to the Super Bowl this season, as the only two head coaches to make this list in their first year with their respective teams. And Johnson was the only true freshman head coach to make it, period. That’s how much his 19 total games as Chicago’s head coach have changed the way people think about this franchise.
Speaking of which: Johnson and the Bears are apparently the talk of the Senior Bowl, too, according to the Chicago Tribune’s Brad Biggs.
“There’s a ton of respect for Ben Johnson around the league,” Biggs said from the ground in Mobile. “I had people going out of their way when we were in passing to say, ‘Unbelievable what they did this season. How different was that? Look at the difference a coach can make.’ That was kind of the overriding theme—‘This is what it’s supposed to look like.’
“… The faith that people around the league and respect that people around the league have in Ben Johnson makes the people I’ve encountered feel like the Bears are headed in the right direction, and they’re gaining momentum no matter how you feel specifically about the prospects for 2026.”
Obviously, Johnson didn’t do it all by himself. The players on the field, and general manager Ryan Poles, the man who rebuilt the offensive line and drafted young studs like Colston Loveland and Luther Burden III, had just as big a part in the Bears’ resurgence as the coach. If the players don’t buy into the message and execute, or the roster is trash, what good is the coach?
But that was part of the magic Johnson brought: redefining a culture of losing into one of toughness, accountability, and striving for excellence in every detail. A team that never let it rest until its good got better, and its better made it close to the best in the league.
Last year was just the start, however. As Johnson himself said, it’s back to square one in 2026 after the Bears couldn’t finish the job last year. But there’s no better guy to oversee this particular rebuilding project than the man the Bears currently have running things. And the whole league knows it.
