The Bears’ dysfunction couldn’t keep Ben Johnson away from Caleb Williams
The Chicago Bears are not a trustworthy sports franchise. In fact, they’re one of the least trustworthy teams in American sports.
Since 2011, the year current chairman George McCaskey took over, the Bears have been an unmitigated embarrassment. It would be an understatement to say they’ve been cellar dwellers intent on repeatedly stepping on rakes in pitch darkness. Eight losing seasons. Just two playoff berths. Five different coaches. Four different general managers. Seemingly countless draft swings and misses in a manner that demoralizes everyone with even a tangential connection to the Bears.
Yet, when it came to hiring mad scientist Ben Johnson as the Bears’ head coach — one of the best NFL head coaching candidates in recent memory — none of this instability and discord mattered.
None of it.
Johnson, an adaptive genius who could likely get a job anywhere he wanted, chose the Bears — a team that has perfected the art of self-inflicted chaos. Huh?
It’s all thanks to Caleb Williams, a quarterback Johnson couldn’t resist attaching himself to for the foreseeable future. An uber-talented player who made joining one of the NFL’s premier laughingstocks so enticing in itself. A poised leader whose locker Johnson literally had his kids pose in front of for a photo during his initial tour at Bears headquarters.
Moments like this say it all:
Ben Johnson taking a picture of his kids in front of Caleb Williams’ locker pic.twitter.com/PQz9AGrFhX
— BOOG (@BoogCB) January 21, 2025
It’s cliché and rote, but it’s true.
There’s no guarantee Johnson will work out in Chicago as intended. Projecting how an NFL head coach will fare in their new gig often proves as silly as forecasting myriad Super Bowls and MVPs for any old first-round draft prospect. Sometimes, it seems more impossible to predict because you don’t know how someone will respond with more responsibility on their plate. Sometimes, people crash and burn under such a microscope and immense pressure.
That’s just business.
As a coordinator, Johnson spent the last three years helping turn the Detroit Lions into a juggernaut. He designed an explosive offense (one that was third in expected points added (EPA) since 2022) around Jared Goff, masking his limitations like no one else. He called all the plays, too, finding a unique rhythm that drew rightful comparisons to fellow visionaries like Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan.
David Montgomery with the shovel pass to St. Brown for a gain of 20!#WASvsDET | FOX pic.twitter.com/3nIXUDF5fX
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) January 19, 2025
But in the end, Johnson was never accountable for the entire Detroit team.
He was allowed to stay in his offensive bubble, mixing up wild concoctions in lab experiments as he pleased. That will assuredly not apply to the Bears, even if he gives someone else the full-time keys to the defense. Johnson will have to be a leader and commanding presence for everyone in the organization like he hasn’t before. Johnson is as much a scheme hire as a culture one for a place that desperately needs a genuine sense of accountability. How he responds and acclimates will ultimately define his entire Bears tenure.
There’s also the matter of offensive talent, particularly up front.
As it stands, the Bears do not possess the offensive line that the Lions did. Whereas Detroit had five road graders consistently working in unison like a synchronized dance routine designed to usher extremely large, brutish men out of the way, the Bears may as well have employed a few turnstiles to protect their starting quarterback. At the very least, having someone shortly tap a metro card onto a little black screen might have actually provided more resistance to bloodthirsty defensive fronts.
Caleb Williams was sacked 68 times this season, tied with 2005 David Carr for the 3rd-most in a season since QB sacks were first tracked in 1963. Only 1986 Randall Cunningham (72), and 2002 David Carr (76) were sacked more.
— Courtney Cronin (@CourtneyRCronin) January 5, 2025
But no one expects Johnson to take the Bears to overnight success.
As easy as it is to get caught in the hype, Chicago will not be a Super Bowl contender from the jump. Johnson’s guidance will be a patient process. It’ll be a consistent and, ideally, progressive learning experience. And the Bears will have the time and resources (roughly $82 million in salary cap space without any additional cuts and three top-41 draft picks this offseason) to give their entire offensive line a committed, wholesale makeover.
If all of this sounds way too straightforward, that’s because it really is. That’s because Johnson’s Bears have the most essential piece in place in Williams, the difference-making quarterback who can put a franchise on his shoulders if he’s empowered. Whatever the Bears’ rampant issues are, if Williams reaches his tremendous potential, he can be the kind of quarterback that successfully covers up their grotesque warts like the most expensive concealer found at Lush.
Johnson knows it, too. Above all else, he understands the other finer details can always be taken care of. He knows they’re less of an earnest undertaking with a football team’s non-quarterback problems. A potentially special offensive signal-caller like Williams is much less of a guarantee, and it’s Johnson’s primary job to push him in the right direction anyway.
If nothing else, the Bears now could have the coveted dynamic coach-quarterback duo. You know, their own possible Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes, Sean McDermott and Josh Allen, and John Harbaugh and Lamar Jackson. That’s right. Johnson and Williams can indeed be one of those special pairs who make sweet music together for a decade-plus on the Chicago lakefront. They can create consistent success for the NFL’s charter franchise in the most sustainable way.
That thrilling prospect in itself made taking the Bears’ coaching job worth it.
Every other problem is just every other problem.