Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson has certain philosophies about offensive football. He’s made them pretty obvious over the past few years. He wants a physical, dominant running game and to utilize play-action off of it. Everybody on the field must be willing to block. The quarterback must strive for a high completion percentage (70%). All of these things connect to greater offensive success. Perhaps the one stat he obsesses over the most isn’t talked about enough. He wants yard after the catch.
“We’re going to go back to the basics, and that’s the fundamentals of each position, blocking, tackling, catching the football, running after the catch, ball security.”
You don’t need to look very hard to recognize how seriously Johnson takes YAC. It is evident in almost all of his personnel moves since arriving in Chicago. Colston Loveland and Luther Burden both had that capability. The same is true for Kalif Raymond and Zavion Thomas. Yards after the catch is a big deal because not only does it make Johnson’s life as a play caller easier, but it also eats into the confidence of opposing defenses. Teams that excel in YAC tend to win more games.
Ben Johnson is a math guy, and he sees the numbers.
You’ll notice upon digging into the stats that almost every Super Bowl champion since 2015 has the same thing in common. They all had at least 2,000 yards after the catch for the season. Only three teams in that stretch didn’t. Tampa Bay managed without it in 2020. They had Tom Brady. Philadelphia came up 12 yards short in 2017 and the Denver Broncos did make it in 2015. They had one of the best defenses in NFL history. Everybody else, including the Seattle Seahawks, last season cleared the bar.
The Bears came up short in that department last year, managing 1,874 yards after the catch. Keep in mind that all three offenses that Ben Johnson ran in Detroit cleared at least 2,200 yards. So you can bet he wasn’t happy with the final result. That is a major reason he focused on improving team speed with new arrivals like Raymond and Thomas. Both have return experience, meaning they know how to break tackles for extra yards.
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Johnson understands it’s about maximizing opportunities.
Yards after the catch make life much easier on an offense. Part of that is because it lessens the need to execute long drives. If you’re forced to, say, conduct 12-13 plays per drive vs. 9-10, it increases the odds of making a mistake that leads either to a turnover or a punt. Every little margin matters, especially when the quality of the opponent increases in the playoffs. That is the problem the Bears ran into against Los Angeles. The Rams were good at limiting YAC throughout the season, and it forced Caleb Williams to be more efficient.
That led to three costly interceptions. Ben Johnson knows that could’ve been avoided had the receivers and tight ends done a better job at creating yards for themselves. You can bet this will be a major emphasis in the summer. He wants everybody thinking score every time they touch the football. Fight for those extra yards. Pressure the defense on each play. It isn’t just about wanting to dominate the opponent. There is an underlying strategy he wants to exploit.
