The week we have been waiting for is finally upon us.
The Ben Johnson era has arrived in Chicago.
The Bears have a ways to go before we can say they are a Super Bowl contender, but somehow, it already feels like we’ve reached Xanadu.
Does that mean I’m about to overhype Ben Johnson?
You’re damn right.
The Chicago Bears have an actual head coach. It feels different this time. In my lifetime, the Bears have hired eight different head coaches that I can remember (I was too young to actually remember the hiring
of Mike Ditka). Of those eight, I can say this is easily the most excited I’ve been for a head coach.
Admittedly, the second most excited I’ve been was for Matt Nagy, and while that certainly didn’t work out, to be fair, Nagy was the closest this franchise has come to an effective, modern-day head coach. You can argue that Nagy wasn’t that close, and he probably wasn’t, but that’s more an indictment of the other attempts the Chicago Bears have made.
Matt Eberflus was a failed hire from the start. Sure, you can say you were hopeful, but nothing about that search, from Bill Polian to the three finalists for Ryan Poles to choose from, to picking a defensive-minded head coach, made sense from the jump.
John Fox was a guy to fix the broken culture that Marc Trestman left behind. He was never going to be a long-term solution.
Marc Trestman was a foolish choice.
Dick Jauron was an ambivalent one.
There was excitement around the hiring of Dave Wannstedt, but the Bears felt so dysfunctional around that hire, from the way Mike Ditka’s firing was handled to the fact that the team had NO GENERAL MANAGER (Sorry for yelling, it still is asinine as I type it more than 30 years later).
Of course, there’s Lovie Smith. We all love Lovie Smith. But the fact that Lovie only made the playoffs in three of his nine years in Chicago, and yet he is still heads and tails better than anyone else the Bears have seen in three decades, shows the countless poor decisions the franchise has made since they dominated opponents in the mid-80s.
Lovie was a good coach, but when you compare him to his Chicago Bears head coach counterparts, he looks like Vince Lombardi.
That brings us to Ben Johnson.
I said it once, and I’ll say it again: this feels different.
Not only does it feel different because the Bears have hired an offensive-minded head coach. But they’ve also hired one who calls his own plays and is considered one of the top three or four play callers in the sport, maybe the best.
Sure, the Bears did that once before with Marc Trestman, but we saw what failed with Trestman. He wasn’t a leader. He wasn’t charismatic. He didn’t hold his players to a high standard.
Ben Johnson does.
The only fear that people seemed to have was that Johnson was only a coordinator and never was a head coach. “He isn’t a leader of men,” the doubters shouted.
That couldn’t have been dispelled any more quickly than it could have been.
“The Bears need to hire Mike Vrabel! He’s the culture-changer they need!”
If that was your stance for Vrabel, I hope Johnson has already shown you that Vrabel wasn’t certainly the only choice from that aspect.
Ben Johnson demands perfection from his players. He demands it from himself. The fact that it’s unachievable only means that Ben and his players will always have something to strive for, because there’s always room for improvement.
Johnson has changed the culture. There’s no strolling into meetings late. There’s no “that’s okay, we’ll get’em next time” mentality. The mentality is, “Why didn’t we get’em now?” And there is forethought to fix those issues before they create problems that result in losses.
But we should remember, the Chicago Bears did this completely wrong.
It’s a simple process. Hire from the top down, and therefore everyone has “their guy” without having someone forced upon them. Hire the Team President. Have the President and the Chairman hire a General Manager together. Once that’s done, have that trio hire a head coach. Once the head coach is in place, find the quarterback who will lead your team for the next decade.
The Bears hired Ryan Poles, then hired Kevin Warren, drafted Caleb Williams, and finally hired Ben Johnson.
The Bears did step two, followed by step one, followed by step four, and finished with step three.
But maybe, finally, this mess of a process actually landed the Bears in the best possible position they could have been in.
The Bears landed their unicorn of a head coach because they had a potential unicorn at quarterback. They had the opportunity to hire that unicorn of a head coach because of their poor choice of the previous head coach. Johnson wasn’t quite on anyone’s radar when the Bears hired Eberflus back in 2022.
The Bears landed the pick to select that unicorn quarterback because ownership allowed the previous regime to draft a quarterback before firing them a year later. Ryan Poles took over and had a second-year quarterback with an aging, overpaid roster around him. He had to reset the roster.
To do that, he kind of sacrificed Justin Fields (perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered anyway), but because of where ownership had allowed the roster to reach under the previous regime, the Bears weren’t in a position to draft a quarterback in 2023.
Sure, they could have ended up with CJ Stroud if they did, but I will say today what I said back in 2023: if the Bears had taken a QB that year, I think it would have been Anthony Richardson.
The Bears’ mistakes have led them to Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson.
You can say that’s a pessimistic way to look at it, but I think the wrong process led them to the best possible result.
If it doesn’t work with Ben and Caleb, it feels like it’s never going to work for the Bears.
But it does feel like it’s going to work with Ben and Caleb.
The Bears have their best head coaching prospect and best quarterback prospect that they’ve ever had in franchise history, and they have them at the same time.
When you look at almost all the great coaches in NFL history, they had a great quarterback who paired with them.
Bill Walsh had Joe Montana. Bill Belichick had Tom Brady. Vince Lombardi had Bart Starr. Tom Landry had Roger Staubach. Chuck Noll had Terry Bradshaw. Hell, Don Shula had Johnny Unitas, Bob Griese, and Dan Marino. Even George Halas had Sid Luckman.
Ben Johnson has Caleb Williams.
I’m not saying Johnson and Williams will reach the level of those all-time greats, but the foundation is here for them to reach that level of greatness together.
It’s too early to talk about an all-time great pairing, but it’s not out of the realm of possible outcomes. Did you ever think that was possible with Justin Fields and Matt Eberflus? Matt Nagy and Mitch Trubisky? Marc Trestman and Jay Cutler? Lovie Smith and Rex Grossman? Dick Jauron and Cade McNown? Dave Wannstedt and Jim Harbaugh?
Before Johnson and Williams can run, they need to learn to walk together, and right now, they are only learning to crawl.
It’s the start of something new. New brings hope. But for the first time in a long time, it feels that the hope is tangible, and not something created out of thin air by a city whose sports teams live by the motto, “Wait till next year.”
The Chicago Bears have one of the top five first-time coaching prospects this century. The Chicago Bears have one of the top five quarterback prospects this century.
Both those statements are true. Embrace those statements. Let them wash over you so you can appreciate that we, as Bears fans, are in uncharted waters.
Live in this moment because Monday night against the Minnesota Vikings is the start of a new beginning. Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. Only this time, this beginning won’t be ending with the same old story that’s plagued the Chicago Bears franchise for decades.
The Ben Johnson era has arrived in Chicago.
Quick Hits
(Time for a dose of reality, here’s the ten things I’m most concerned about heading into 2025:
10. LB3: When the Bears need to be in base, can Noah Sewell provide what they need?
9. Will Rome Odunze start creating separation this year and become truly special?
8. The Bears don’t have one safety under contract for 2026 (I know I said 2025, but this bothers me too much not to mention).
7. Will the Bears’ offense take longer than expected to start to mesh and gel during the regular season?
6. Is Braxton Jones about to show serious regression?
5. Will Jaylon Johnson’s groin injury linger?
4. Does the running back room have enough talent to be functional this season?
3. Can the offensive line stay healthy enough to not expose the lack of depth in the room?
2. Jaquan Brisker: Can he stay on the field? They need 13+ games from him.
1. The Edge Room: Who is going to get consistent pressure from the outside?
