The Chicago Bears have had a steady parade of cool, calm, collected head coaches over the past 30 years, for better or worse. Matt Eberflus, Marc Trestman, Lovie Smith, Dick Jauron, and Dave Wannstedt were all different versions of the same person. They didn’t operate with fire. They preferred to coach through steadiness. It took all of one press conference to realize Ben Johnson was not about that. His personality screamed “alpha” from the moment he walked through those doors at Halas Hall.
This is a man who loved the game down to his bones. He demands excellence from both his players and himself. He has a vision for what his football team should be. Violent, tough, physical, and aggressive were the words used the most often. It was taking the team back to the identity it held for decades in the 20th century. His reasoning for this is incredibly simple. Johnson refuses to let other teams dictate how his players feel. He wants the Bears to be in their heads. Jason Lieser of the Chicago Sun-Times got the description in an interview.
Ben Johnson has a lot in common with Roman emperors.
“We want to be feared,” Johnson told the Sun-Times, every word edging closer toward the tone his players hear in practice. “We want shutouts on defense. We want blowouts on offense. That’s the mentality that we’re trying to embrace. It’s not, ‘Are we going to win?’ It’s, ‘How much are we going to win by?’ That’s what we live by.”
He’s accelerating. This would be a terrible time to interrupt him.
“That’s how I grew up: We were dominant in youth league, we were dominant in middle school, we were dominant in high school, and that’s what I believe in,” he continued. “Hell, I still remember lining up and running ‘I Right 24 Sweep Dive’ 10 times in a row. Everyone knew what we were doing, and we were just, ‘Boom, boom, boom.’
“It was hard-nosed, mountain football in North Carolina, and that is my backbone more so than any flashy offensive play there could ever be. It’s fundamentals, technique, effort. Those are the pillars of what we want to be about. It’s a differentiator at this level. Every team talks about it, but I don’t know that every team is about it.”
The Bears’ head coach understands football at its core.
Teams that are more physical and more disciplined almost always win more games. He saw proof of concept in his younger days as a player. Then he watched it work with the Detroit Lions under Dan Campbell. That experience cemented the mentality he would bring to Chicago. If you think the emperor comparison is a little over the top, here is a quote from Caligula.
“Let them hate me, so long as they fear me.”
Ben Johnson seems to relish his enemies’ hatred. We saw that from how he has treated the Green Bay Packers and their fans. Hating something is always the first emotion. Next will come fear as he continues finding ways to beat them. The same thing happened to the Bears with Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers. Hate turned to fear as it settled in that both were very good at what they did. When you make opponents fear you, half the battle is already won. Johnson knows this.
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It isn’t just about the opponent, though.
A certain mentality is bred when instilling this vision. One thing players love is proving they have the mental and physical advantage over another team. It is so intoxicating. Once you’ve accomplished that a few times during a season, confidence grows. Suddenly, the players no longer want to win. They expect to win, and are willing to play harder than ever to make sure the feeling never goes away. It worked for George Halas. It worked for Mike Ditka. Why shouldn’t it work for Johnson?
This goes back to the Roman analogy. For those not schooled in history, the Roman legions were the greatest soldiers in the ancient world. Their conditioning, discipline, and tactics were on the cutting edge of warfare for centuries. That is why emperors became so feared. Other nations knew those men wielded the legions as his weapon. Johnson is building this franchise with the same image: discipline, conditioning, tactics, and controlled violence.
