When Ben Johnson arrived as the new head coach of the Chicago Bears, it came with something that isn’t often granted: roster control. Most teams have the same setup. The general manager controls the roster while the head coach runs the team. However, one of the stipulations for Johnson coming to Chicago was the ability to pinpoint the players he wanted. The Bears, knowing they needed a home run at head coach, granted it. You would think this might make general manager Ryan Poles and his scouting department resentful.
After all, history says that coaches and scouts don’t always see eye to eye on the types of players you should target. This can lead to tension. By the sound of things, though, Bears scouts are happy and a little relieved that Johnson arrived. It was explained in the new 1920 Football Drive that the head coach laid out a clear objective when scouting players. He wanted smart, highly competitive kids. This framework made their lives much easier when they went onto college campuses looking for potential talent.
It sounds like that wasn’t the case under previous head coach Matt Eberflus.
Ben Johnson has a clear vision for this team.
That was never the case with Eberflus. People inside the building didn’t quite understand what sort of identity he was going for as head coach. The only concrete things he said were that they were looking for players willing to work really hard. That doesn’t really narrow the field much since most prospects who reach the NFL level have at least a solid work ethic. Johnson understood that he would have to make it clearer.
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- Intelligence
- Competitiveness
- Speed
Those are the traits he outlined from the moment he arrived. Based on the draft results over the past two years, the Bears’ scouts understood the assignment and executed it quite well. Last year gave the team Colston Loveland, Luther Burden, and Kyle Monangai. This year shows tons of potential with Dillon Thieneman, Logan Jones, Sam Roush, and others. All of them showcased the traits Johnson wanted. He knows that smart, competitive athletes always have success in the NFL. His job is merely to put them in the right positions.
Scouts are at their best when they know what to look for.
This is why the talk about team-wide identity, which may sound cliché, is actually so important. Everybody praises the Baltimore Ravens for their consistent ability to scout talent going back years. Part of that is because the organization has maintained a consistent mandate on the types of players they want. Even fans of other teams have no problems identifying which players the Ravens are likely to target every year. Once scouts know which players won’t ever be considered, it automatically narrows their focus.
The Bears haven’t really been doing that for a long time. Not since Jim Finks ran the front office in the 1970s and 1980s has the organization had a clear vision for the types of players it wanted. Jerry Angelo did this to a degree during his long stint in the 2000s as well. It seems rather fitting that a head coach like Ben Johnson became the one who finally got them back on track. There is no more sense of flailing about in the scouting process. The Bears know what they want and have consistently found ways to get it.
