In the middle of the season, when the Bears were on a roll, I had some fun and put out an AI-generated image of Ben Johnson on Mount Rushmore with George Halas, Mike Ditka, and Lovie Smith, and declared that he was already the Bears’ fourth-greatest coach in team history.
Most fans rolled their eyes at the suggestion, and, putting aside the terrible representation of Ben Johnson,
which looks more like Eric Stonestreet, I thought it was arguable then, and I don’t think it’s arguable now.
Ben Johnson is already the 4th greatest coach in Bears history, based on accomplishments alone.
Let’s break it down.
The top three coaches of all time are easy. We know it’s George Halas; he might be on the NFL’s Mount Rushmore of most important people. We know it’s Mike Ditka; he won a Super Bowl. And we know it’s Lovie Smith who went to a Super Bowl and is 3rd all-time in regular season wins and third all-time in playoff wins.
But when we get to the fourth spot on Mount Rushmore (and when you make the Rushmore argument, it’s always 4 and only 4), it gets very debatable.
Let’s break it down. To be on Rushmore, is it fair to say the coach should have a winning record? If you agree, that leaves us 6 candidates. Those 6 are Ben Johnson, Matt Nagy, Ralph Jones, Hunk Anderson, Luke Johnsos, and Paddy Driscoll.
Anderson and Johnsos really can’t be considered. They were basically co-interim coaches when George Halas went off to World War II. They won a championship, but those years were odd in the NFL, and the league wasn’t at full strength.
That leaves Johnson, Driscoll, Jones, and Nagy.
Let’s compare him to Matt Nagy next. Nagy has two playoff appearances, but zero wins, including the heartbreaker to the Philadelphia Eagles. Did he win an epic game against the Green Bay Packers in the playoffs? That answer is no. Next.
Driscoll coached the Bears for two years. In his first year, he led the Bears to the 1956 Championship game, where he was thoroughly outcoached by Jim Lee Howell and lost 47 to 7. The Bears made a tactical error in the shoe apparel on a frozen field, which led to the slaughter. That certainly falls on the coach. The next year, the team had a losing record, and Halas decided to move back to the sidelines and reassigned Driscoll. That doesn’t sound like a Rushmore resume.
That leaves us just two names: Ben Johnson and Ralph Jones.
Jones coached the Bears for 3 seasons. They won the championship in 1932, but that was before there were championship games. The Bears went 7-1 with SIX ties that season. The Packers went 10-3-1 that season and won 3 more games than the Bears, but the Bears had the higher winning percentage due to the excessive ties and were awarded the championship.
Jones was let go after the 1932 season due to economic hardships, and Halas couldn’t afford to pay a coach at the time and had to take the job himself. The NFL was less than 15 years old at the time and didn’t have a financial footing.
After Jones was let go, was he a hot commodity to be hired by another team? No. He went to coach at Lake Forest college where he coached both football and basketball.
Now I am a lover of NFL history, but I am not calling Jones the 4th best coach in Bears’ history because he won one title when there were no championship games yet.
That leaves one man, and one man only. Ben Johnson.
Johnson has redefined a struggling franchise, instilled a culture, and won 12 football games, including the team’s first playoff win since Lovie Smith was coach a decade and a half ago.
There’s no argument left to be had. Ben Johnson is already the franchise’s fourth-best coach and has his place on the team’s Mount Rushmore of head coaches.
