Ben Johnson’s kids wanted to watch the second half of the Bears’ win before they went to school Tuesday morning. The coach heard some of the “Monday Night Football” broadcast and didn’t sound amused, telling Bears play-by-play man Jeff Joniak in a Tuesday interview that “it sounded like from that game the other night a few people weren’t particularly pleased with how we were winning right now.”
Asked about the broadcast later Tuesday, Johnson tried to prove a point.
“Listen, you want respect in this league, you got to go earn it,” he said. “That’s where we’re at right now. We need to go earn that respect from not only the rest of the teams in the NFL, but everybody. That’s where we are.”
Johnson never said the name of Troy Aikman, ABC’s color analyst. The Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback drew the ire of some Bears fans for characterizing D’Andre Swift’s 55-yard catch-and-run touchdown in the fourth quarter as a matter of fortune.
“Open as he is, then you make one guy miss, and now with his speed, he’s off to the races,” Aikman said during a replay. “Just um, just luck on Chicago’s part. It really wasn’t so much intended.”
Lotta flags
After being flagged nine times for 84 yards, the Bears rank fourth in the NFL with 8.6 penalties per game. They have been penalized for 72.4 yards per game, the third-most yards in the league.
The Bears had an 11-yard Rome Odunze touchdown catch wiped out when left tackle Theo Benedet lined up too far back from the line of scrimmage.
Johnson said Benedet had been warned earlier in the game for lining up too far back, a courtesy many officials afford players.
Referee Alex Moore’s crew is the most ticky-tack in the NFL, leading the league in penalties called and yardage accrued via flags. Johnson said only turns calls into the league for review when he needs clarity on how to coach something, and there “might have been one or two” instances Monday that fit the bill.
Notes
• Linebacker Noah Sewell is in concussion protocol.
• Charles Leno, the seventh-round left tackle who started 94 games in seven years with the Bears before spending three more with the Commanders, announced his retirement. Leno last played in 2023, starting 13 games for the Commanders. Leno said on Instagram that he chose Tuesday to make the announcement because it was the two-year anniversary of the death of his young daughter.
• Monday night’s game was the second consecutive 25-24 win for the Bears, matching their Week 4 victory against the Raiders. The only other team to win back-to-back games by one point with the exact same scores was the 1926 Frankford Yellow Jackets.
• The Bears’ next four opponents have losing records: the 1-5 Saints, 1-5 Ravens, 2-4 Bengals and 2-5 Giants.
• The Commanders went 3-for-8 on third down, marking the third consecutive game in which the Bears have allowed three or fewer first downs. The Bears hadn’t done that in 21 years.