Bret Bielema knows a lot about coaching. The man has been a head coach for 17 years in the college ranks, going from Wisconsin to Arkansas and now Illinois. That run has been highly successful, including 12 bowl game appearances and 6 victories. In that time, he has sent countless players to the NFL, where many of them have had success. This has helped him establish relationships inside the league. That is probably why he was spotted at a Chicago Bears practice during OTAs last week. It was there that he got his first real introduction to head coach Ben Johnson.
One would forgive Bielema for being skeptical at first. Johnson just turned 40. He’s one of the youngest coaches in the NFL. Bielema has been around a long time. Sometimes these young guys don’t have a full grasp on what it really takes to sustain success. It didn’t take long for him to realize that it wouldn’t be a problem at all for Johnson. His experience at Halas Hall confirmed that the Bears’ head coach has it figured out. He explained to 104.3 The Score that what separates Johnson isn’t his offensive genius.
It’s his remarkable organizational skills and his ability to communicate.
It didn’t take long to see that Ben Johnson was more than just scoring points.
That is what everybody thought the Bears were getting when he was hired last year. He’d just engineered the most successful offense in the NFL with the Detroit Lions. Chicago would get an offensive wizard who could hopefully turn Caleb Williams around at quarterback. Maybe he could prove to be more than that. Boy was he. From the outset, it was clear Johnson had way more charisma and vision than anybody could’ve imagined. He knew what kind of identity he wanted the Bears to have from the moment he stepped inside Halas Hall.
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Then came the intelligence. Everybody knew Johnson was a whiz kid in college, earning degrees in mathematics and computer science. To do that, you need a sharp eye for organization and detail. Unsurprisingly, that carried over into his job as a coach. Running an NFL team requires both of those abilities. Every practice must be organized if it’s to run on time. Players can’t develop properly unless the coach has a sharp eye for the details in their fundamentals and way of operating.
By the sound of things, Ben Johnson is on top of all of it.
The Bears haven’t had a coach like that in years.
While the organization has employed guys who could motivate players, none of them had the organizational skills or attention to detail to keep everybody on task. The last one who had that kind of reputation was Mike Ditka. For all the lore about his explosive personality and bluster, people often forget Da Coach was well-prepared and organized. He had a firm idea of what type of team he wanted and did a great job building it when he arrived. That shouldn’t be a surprise. He’d been mentored by Tom Landry in Dallas for years.
Ben Johnson is built the same way as Ditka was, only he might be even smarter. If that is the case, then Bielema is correct. The Bears are in great hands. Sustaining success in the NFL starts at the top. If you don’t have the right head coach, it doesn’t matter how talented your roster is. The Bears hadn’t learned this lesson for most of the past three decades. Maybe good luck was the only reason they landed Johnson. Whatever the case, he’s here and success should continue.
