When Ben Johnson became head coach of the Chicago Bears, he admitted he knew there would be this one obvious question all successful coordinators face when they become head coaches.
Just because he’s a good coordinator, why can he be a head coach?
“The role or responsibilities are completely different, and I'm well aware of that, and I know that a lot of coordinators have failed in this role,” Johnson said at the time. “Here's what I’d tell you is every step of my journey, whether it's quality control, whether it was position coach, whether it was coordinator, I have found a way to change myself to be the best in that particular job.
“And so now that the job requirements are changing and I'm no longer just coaching an offensive player or an offensive unit. This is the entire team, and the good news is this, I am a football coach, so I will be able to change and adjust accordingly. “
It might seem like a bit of a canned answer, but the Bears have already seen signs everything Johnson said about himself is really true and that he can make the successful transition former Bears coaches Dave Wannstedt, Matt Eberflus or even Matt Nagy ultimately failed to achieve.
Reserve QB Tyson Bagent sees occurring exactly what Johnson predicted about himself and cites Johnson’s personal ability and experience as the reason.
"I like how thorough he is,” Bagent said. “I think that he can go down the rabbit hole of every situation in football, with every position in football, which I think has been most impressive. Usually, you get an offensive-minded guy or a defensive-minded guy at the helm of the team, and I think, obviously, he is an offensive guy, but you can kind of see him going down the rabbit hole with the defense in team meetings of what's he expecting on the defensive side of the ball, and, really, the most impressive thing is when he does that, he speaks that same language that the defense is speaking.
“That's been what I've noticed. He's about as good of a position coach as every position coach that's on our team. I think that'll do wonders for us going down the line, just because it's very crystal clear the expectations at every position."
In Johnson’s case, it required more than installing an offense, finding players to fill the key positions and begin attacking. The Bears have had a losing attitude and this needed changing.
"A first-time head coach, I think he's doing a great job of trying to create culture in a place that's been asking for it for a while,” Bagent said. “With that comes being unwavering in what you say and how you act.
“I think that has been the case so far. He hasn't taken a step back from any claims that he's made up until this point."
In some ways, this part of changing the collective Bears psyche might have been less difficult than putting pieces in place and coaching them up.
That’s because the Bears don’t exactly have a monopoly on losing. Coaches across the league must deal with this type of thing, anyway.
“It's easy to go, ‘Woe is me,’ but then you also look at it like, unfortunately this is most of the NFL,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “There are maybe eight organizations out there that have crazy consistency over a 10-year period. That's just not what we've been in.
“You get used to the chaos a little bit as you've been in here and learn to deal with those things. You learn to adapt. When you take a step away from a season, sure, it definitely is frustrating when you look at it and you get the playoff time and teams are still playing and you're not. You kind of feel those things. You understand it's part of being in the NFL and I'm optimistic that this will be the last time that we do these crazy changes, at least in my career hopefully.”
Eberflus and Nagy both came in talking about establishing a culture or foundation. Nagy had initial success before it all crumbled. Eberflus had no success, even tough he insisted it was working. While he insisted, his players were demanding to be coached harder–a sure sign little was going right.
Johnson and his emphasis on adhering to the details has taken hold.
Running back D’Andre Swift was with Johnson in Detroit and has been in Chicago for over a year. He saw this coming.
“The culture, that's changing, you could tell that Ben has been doing a hell of a job so far,” Swift said. “Day in and day out, everything he's doing is going to be for the better for this organization and for this city."
Changing the culture and getting an offense installed are only part of the task. Handling the in-game essentials with the clock running is where the last regime failed.
The Bears can see a true leap forward from coordinator to head coach once they know Johnson does this without issue.
X: BearsOnSI