As highly touted as [Bears](https://chicago.suntimes.com/bears) coach Ben Johnson was as an offensive coordinator and head-coaching candidate the last few years, he got a good reminder of where he truly stands in the NFL’s hierarchy of coaches when he encountered the Chiefs’ Andy Reid at the owners’ meetings in March.
When Reid sauntered into The Breakers in Palm Beach, Fla., the whole room took notice — not just Johnson and the other young guns, but even those with Super Bowl rings.
“You get a bunch of the head coaches together and they part the Red Sea for him and he walks on up in such high regard,” Johnson said this week. “It was pretty cool to see that for the first time.”
There will be plenty of wow moments like that for Johnson, who is stepping into the head job for the first time at 39. Almost every week this season, he’ll be facing a coach significantly further ahead of him, and the onus is on him to prove he belongs on their level.
He’ll go head-to-head with Reid in the preseason finale Friday, and while both coaches likely will keep it vanilla, both said they’ll play their starters.
When the real games start, surefire Hall of Famers await Johnson in the Raiders’ Pete Carroll (Week 4), the Ravens’ John Harbaugh (Week 8) and the Steelers’ [Mike Tomlin](https://chicago.suntimes.com/bears/2021/11/7/22769056/bears-steelers-matt-nagy-vs-mike-tomlin) (Week 12).
Every coach in the division — the Vikings’ Kevin O’Connell, the Packers’ Matt LaFleur and his old boss Dan Campbell with the Lions — already has proven himself and earned a contract extension. Those three are a combined 145-85-1 already.
Sprinkled throughout the rest of the schedule, Johnson also will match up against the Commanders’ Dan Quinn, the Bengals’ Zac Taylor, the 49ers’ Kyle Shanahan and the Eagles’ Nick Sirianni, all of whom have been to the Super Bowl as head coaches. Sirianni’s team is the defending champion.
For all the excitement and optimism sparked by the Bears hiring Johnson, that’s a tremendous challenge. He’ll get a good gauge on his own progress once he takes on coaches like that.
His predecessor, Matt Eberflus, was outfoxed nearly every game — oddly enough, one of his best performances was upending legend Bill Belichick in 2022 — on his way to a 14-32 record.
His missteps cost the Bears several games they could’ve won and ultimately led to his firing at the end of a stretch that began with the Fail Mary against the Commanders and concluded with a bewildering scene as time ran out against the Lions with him still holding his final timeout.
The only time he faced Reid, a 2023 visit to Arrowhead, the Chiefs had a 41-0 lead when they pulled their starters.
This matchup between the Bears and Chiefs is low-stakes, but it offers a glimpse of what Johnson will be up against this season. He was reverent when he spoke about Reid, who is fourth all-time in wins and has three championships.
“We have a number of guys in the building here that were at Kansas City at some point and I just love picking their brains, because he’s the G.O.A.T.,” Johnson said.
He added that Reid and his wife, Tammy, were incredibly welcoming to him and his wife, Jessica, in Palm Beach and he had “a couple conversations” with Reid that week.
They’ll talk Friday before the game, too, and that’ll certainly be a different chat now that Johnson has been on the job for seven months and is on the brink of his first season. There already have been countless challenges he hadn’t seen before as a coordinator. To Reid, of course, it’s nothing new.