Hiring a head coach is never a guarantee. The Chicago Bears know that more than most NFL organizations. Over the past 30 years, only two of the seven they’ve brought in (Lovie Smith and Matt Nagy) ended up with winning records. Ben Johnson hopes to become the third, and by far the most successful. That means doing something not accomplished in 40 years: winning a Super Bowl. One person who knows what the new Bears head coach is going through is Mike McDaniel.
He also took over a deflated organization in Miami a few years ago. Through great motivational skills and offensive genius, he’s led the Dolphins to three consecutive winning seasons and two playoff appearances. McDaniel was already aware of Johnson by reputation from his time in Detroit and got to know him last week during a joint practice between the two teams. He can already see two qualities that have made for great head coaches. One is the constantly aggressive mindset. The other is something that too often gets overlooked.
“I have the highest regard for him as a football coach,” McDaniel said of Johnson. “Offensive football is made to have kind of an attack-like pretense to it. He attacks all the time. He’s innovative and puts his players in positions to succeed, which I think is the nameplate – head coach, you should be able to do that for players.
“I feel super old talking to him about, ‘Well, when I was in Year 1.’ But it’s a real conversation, just because you’re navigating waters that you’ve seen, but you’ve been in the boat on the side of the waters. You haven’t been in the waters totally the way you are as a head coach. So, I know he’s going to do a phenomenal job.”
Mike McDaniel saw other coaches exhibit the same trait.
It was Mike Shanahan in Denver, Gary Kubiak in Houston, Dan Quinn in Atlanta, and Kyle Shanahan in San Francisco. Great head coaches always know how to maximize their players. It isn’t just about coaching them up; it is also about understanding their strengths and weaknesses. This was a constant criticism of previous Bears head coaches. Most of them never seemed to understand how to use players properly. Noah Sewell is a perfect example. He was a non-entity for two years under Matt Eberflus. Now he’s thriving under Dennis Allen because they’re using his strengths correctly. That opportunity came because of Ben Johnson. You can already see the same on offense with the creative ways they use DJ Moore and Luther Burden.
People take for granted how easy the good coaches make utilizing their players look. It is not. Mike McDaniel knows this. People thought Tua Tagovailoa was a lost cause under Brian Flores. McDaniel took over and immediately adjusted the offense to fit what the QB does best. Johnson will likely do the same in Chicago.
Subscribe to the BFR Youtube channel and ride shotgun with Dave and Ficky as they break down Bears football like nobody else.