LAKE FOREST, Ill., — There has been a common phrase thrown around the NFL that it's a "copycat league" as teams try to emulate the best teams.
Sometimes it fails, as the Detroit Lions tried to emulate the New England Patriots by hiring Matt Patricia as their head coach back in 2018. Other times, it may work even on an individual play level, with the Buffalo Bills copying over the tush push from the Philadelphia Eagles. In his press conference before day two of training camp for the Chicago Bears, head coach Ben Johnson was asked about his philosophy on splitting running and passing plays, and whether he had a certain number of each he wants. In a refreshing change from previous coaching staffs, Johnson gave a very insightful and common-sense approach to the game of football.
"No, there are not. Every game is its own entity. That's what I learned — I saw it for a number of years when I was in Miami," Johnson said on Thursday. "The New England Patriots were at the top of the league for so long, and each week, you just didn't know. Offense and defense, they just continued to morph, and they had their opponents guessing. You didn't know what Belichick was gonna pull out front-wise or coverage-wise on defense. You didn't know what McDaniels was gonna do on offense. That's something I would like to do here as well. The elements play a role. Our talent plays a role. Who we're going against plays a role. It all plays a piece in the puzzle, and that's what's fun about each game week."
Johnson spent seven seasons with the Dolphins (2012-2018), with the Patriots going 9-5 (all five losses coming in Miami), and his point rings true about never knowing what they're going to do on offense.
I took a look at the numbers in the seven seasons New England played the Dolphins during the regular season (14 games) and calculated their tendencies based on the number of plays they ran. In total, the Patriots ran 901 plays, and of those plays, 521 were pass plays to 380 run plays (57.8% pass to 42.2% run). The split when the Patriots won in those nine games was a perfect 50/50, with 303 pass and run plays. In those five losses? New England averaged 43.6 passing attempts per game (66.7% of their total plays in those games) to 21.8 rushing attempts (33.3% of their plays).
Now that's not to say that the Patriots at the time looked to have a 50/50 split or that it's what Johnson wants with the Bears, the idea is to be unpredictable in what you're doing.
New England was so good at running and passing the ball that it made them hard to game-plan for. Having a 50/50 shot to guess the play is a horrible percentage for a defender to handle. Defenses want to make offenses one-dimensional because they can tailor their defensive play calls to one type of play or another. Part of what made this possible as well was their ability to run 12 personnel so much, with Gronk and a host of solid backup tight ends that included former Bear Martellus Bennett, Dwayne Allen, and Scott Chandler. Johnson commented on that as well during this morning's presser:
"I think you go back to what they were able to do. In this day and age, each week you don't know if you're going to get base defense to nickel defense, to (defend)12 personnel," Johnson said. "That's kind of the fun of the game, too. Calling the game is 'what is the defense going to be in and how can you go after them and attack them.' I think 12 gives you a lot of options, particularly when you have athletic tight ends that can still block. You can line up in 11 personnel sets and spread them out, or you can get condensed on down and play big boy ball. That's why I think it's a challenge, this day and age if you've got the guys to defend."
If there is anyone you want to copy on coaching principles, then it would definitely be the Brady-Belichick Patriots. Johnson, despite never working in New England, has a better understanding of those ideas than people who coached under Belichick during that time. Patricia, in particular, was seemingly trying to copy his personality or the relationships he would develop with players, without any of the accomplishments to back it up.
Rather than copying how Bill acted in culture building in this aspect, Johnson rightly seems to be going over the tactical reasons why the Patriots were so good. Yes, they built great rosters that had one of the best quarterbacks of all time, but they had a sound tactical backing that fit their roster and kept defenses and offenses guessing.
We'll see when the lights turn on and the real games begin if those ideals can hold up for the Bears and Johnson, but the foundation for a great team could be being built with Johnson at the helm.