Hiring Ben Johnson is an organizational win for the Bears

My guess is, like all of these seismic moments in the 2025 NFL offseason, those inside Halas Hall are probably the least surprised that Ben Johnson ended up choosing the Chicago Bears as his ultimate destination.

Despite the fact that Johnson is the preferred choice in at least one and possibly two other locationshe picked a solid roster, the quarterback with the highest upside, arguably the best offensive line and a division he’s familiar with. For the Bears, this should be considered an absolute win with no qualifications. Regardless of how Johnson turns out, he has been the league’s best and most entertaining offensive coordinator in each of the past three seasons. He was highly sought after by the Carolina Panthers season 2022of Washington Commanders after season ’23 and by the Las Vegas Raiders and Jacksonville Jaguars after season ’24a build we haven’t seen in the bus rental business since Adam Gase or Josh McDaniels Part II. He has made a brand name out of football that is legitimately entertaining to both passers-by who enjoy the absurdity of a flea flicker or a false tripand for those who feel the hair stand up on the back of their necks for a unique take on blocking a run outside.

Everything will change the moment Johnson steps to the podium and utters his first words in navy blue and orange, but the interview process was seen as a sort of organizational litmus test as Johnson was highly selective and not shy about painting a picture of what he wanted (in short: the closest thing the NFL can offer to reason and rationality). Each component of an NFL organization has its own Super Bowl. For the scouts, it is a draft. For the PR department, it’s the Pete Rozelle Award. And for the Bears’ front office, owner and team president, putting forth a robust and diverse search that culminated in the hiring of Johnson is tantamount to their own silver trophy.

What is fascinating about this moment, of course, is the deeply embedded uncertainty. Of course, we can say that about any first-time head coach. There are those who ascend neatly into the chair and those who wither when removed from the sensible world of plan, call and design, forced to argue about the merits of the team’s official airline, which hotel to stay at in Miami and when will the curfew be on the road. It’s one of the strangest ascensions in all of sports when someone is taken out of the job they’re good at and asked to essentially help run a $5 billion business.

But especially with Johnson, he comes from a destination that built for him the best offensive line in the sport, a stable of dominant skill-position players — Sam LaPorta is, like, the team’s fourth-best option in the passing game — and operated under a cult of personality in head coach Dan Campbell, who changed the way teams saw what was possible from the position.

This is not to take away from Johnson’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”-length trick-play mixtape, his glass case full of offensive records, or the way he took on Jared Goff and tailored an offense that made him a borderline MVP- candidate. And there’s certainly a possibility that part of the reason we’re so in love with LaPorta, Jameson Williams, Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jahmyr Gibbs in the first place, is that Johnson kept finding ways to put them in open spaces. .

The beauty of this rental is that we figure it out right away. For the very reasons Johnson took the Bears’ job that we mentioned above, the job will dictate how much Johnson benefited from Detroit and how much Detroit benefited from him. Caleb Williams was brilliant for stretches this season—moments when Williams, even in the midst of a season with Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye and Bo Nix, arguably looked like the most talented player in the rookie class—but also insanely adrift, both situationally and with his tendency to float away from acting. Chicago didn’t have a 1,000-yard rusher (the Lions were 200 yards short of having two, with David Montgomery three games short) or receiver, despite having Keenan Allen, DJ Moore and Rome Odunze (the Lions had two).

The Bears held on to Matt Eberflus to start 2024 because the belief was that the roster was close to contention. Now the only way forward is immediate dispute.

These are of course problems for September. In Chicago, a place that has been something of a coaching afterthought since the team hired Lovie Smith from St. Louis Rams (and Smith, eventually, took the team to a Super Bowl), and came down with the biggest remaining name in the coaching market – a hire that I’m guessing will also show the team’s financial commitment to get it right when Johnson had other suitors—was all that mattered. For a team that saw a chance for wins in the 2024 season quickly disappear, putting one on the board early in ’25 goes a long way toward healing the bruises.