If anyone thinks Ben Johnson is coming to Chicago and changing from the innovative, detail-driven play caller and designer he had been in Detroit, they don't know him very well.
Running back D'Andre Swift knows him, from 2020-22 in Detroit. The intensity Johnson had then is still the same, says Swift.
“He’s been the same way," Swift said. "That's what we need and what you want from the head man.
"Can't let anything slide by the wayside and let things go on without addressing them. You aren’t going to win that way. We can't get to where we're trying to go that way either. So it's good.”
This is why Swift isn't surprised with all of the hollering by Johnson at practices over a player lining up 2 inches out of position in the formation, or the team breaking the huddle like a bunch of drunks would.
There's something else Swift says Johnson can be counted on to do. That is try to achieve good balance in the offense because you never know when you need to lean heavily toward the run side or to the pass side.
"It would vary week-to-week," Swift said. "Certain weather might dictate that, a defense might dictate which plays get called and how the game needs to be called. There’s a lot that goes into it.”
Making sure they can do both is essential. The Lions under Johnson were third in rushing attempts last year and did it without the benefit of a running quarterback like the Eagles (first, 36.5 per game) and Ravens (second, 32.6 per game). The Lions ran it 31.4 times per game.
They were eighth in his second year in rushing attempts and 13th in his first year, when they trailed much of the time. Their pass attempt numbers reflect the balance as well. They were 13th last year, ninth in 2023 and 12th in 2022.
Johnson wants to make things look the same in terms of formations and personnel packages to throw off defenses, and then keep them off balance with an unpredictable balance within his play calls.
“Every game is its own entity, that's what I learned," Johnson said. "I saw it for a number of years when I was in Miami. The New England Patriots were really the top of the league for so long. Each week you just didn't know offense and defense, they just continued to morph and they had their opponents guessing.
"You didn't know what (Bill) Belichick was going to pull out front-wise or coverage-wise on defense. You didn't know what (Patriots offensive coordinator Josh) McDaniels was going to do. He might throw it 50 times; he might run it 50 times. And standing from afar, seeing how dominant that was, I think that's a really good tactic to have. That's something that I would like to do here as well. The elements play a role. Our talent plays a role, who we're going against plays a role. It all plays a piece into the puzzle. And that's what's fun about each game week.”
How many times over the years did the Bears go up against a team with a weak run defense, try to run it and fail, and then have nothing to fall back on because their passing wasn't really a strength to begin with? It even happened the reverse way. Balance lets them avoid this.
The importance of the running game to Johnson is apparent in their practices.
They have had coaches who devoted inordinate amounts of time to the passing attack at training camp, then found they could neither anyway.
Not to point fingers at coaches but their last names sort of rhyme with "leggy" and "Beetlejuice" (Nagy and Eberflus for those lacking imaginations).
Their last coach said he wanted to run but their running game became the quarterback scrambling and the running backs took on less importance. They ranked high among the teams with the fewest passes for two years. They spent forever in camp throwing and rarely running. Then they switched to the passing quarterback last year and threw it more but ran less and poorly.
"We’ve got to make sure we're attacking the defense and keeping them guessing, but at the same time we’ve got to do things that we're good at,” Johnson said.
So they're going to work hard at doing both, and when any eventuality arises they will be able to respond.
It’s not a novel approach, but is effective. It's something the Bears haven’t really been able to say they do on offense since Marc Trestman was coach.
And even then they couldn’t do so much else—like, chiefly, win games.
