It’s just another morning at Halas Hall, nothing remarkable. It’s a couple hours until practice and about a month until the Bears’ season starts, and it’s quiet. The sun shines softly on the dewy field near the building, and coach Ben Johnson can see it out the window of the X’s and O’s conference room.
Amid that tranquility, though, a fervor rises. It takes only a minute or so of talking competition and ambition to put him in motion. He rocks in his chair as he mentions that Super Bowl champions fade from people’s memories and how he wants more than that.
Not just wins, but domination. Not just scoring, but more points than any team in NFL history. Not just a Lombardi Trophy, but one that stands like a skyscraper the way the 1985 Bears’ legacy still towers four decades later. And not just one, but a dynasty.
He takes off his hat and runs his hand through his disheveled hair as he gets louder, and f-bombs burst into his sentences like popcorn. “Good, better, best” is his rallying cry in the locker room, but “Best ever or why bother?” is his true credo.
This is his baseline. This is his resting heartrate. He starts on 10.
“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 hardnosed, 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 didn’t hire just an offensive mastermind last year. They got a psycho, in all the best ways. He gives his players a choice: Get on board and become as ruthless about this game as he is, or turn in your swipe card at the front desk on your way out.
That was a wakeup call to everyone, including quarterback Caleb Williams, in Johnson’s first training camp. Now it’s the Bears’ new normal.
Players come and go, and many of those who were on the field for the preseason opener against the Browns on Saturday won’t even be on the roster come September. Johnson was the most influential and important person the Bears had out there.
Everyone looks at Williams, for example, through the lens of how good Johnson can make him. The answer to questions about the reshuffled offensive line is that Johnson will figure it out. Even on defense, a major concern for the Bears this season, there’s trust that Johnson can solve any problem.
That belief ripples through Halas Hall and was reinforced by seven incredible comebacks last season, including a playoff win against the Packers. It propelled them to 11-6, an NFC North title and the divisional round of the postseason, where they lost in overtime to the Rams.
Veteran linebacker T.J. Edwards said Johnson fostered “a belief that we’ll make a play at the end of the game to win it,” and Williams echoed, “He’s provided that belief, that confidence.”
Emphatic endorsements rose from all corners of the locker room last season, and players weren’t talking like that about Matt Eberflus and Matt Nagy. Nagy was a fun coach at times, but never matched this intensity. Eberflus sounded lost at his introductory press conference and stayed that way.
Johnson couldn’t trace the exact spark of his fire, but knew with conviction it jumped to another level in 2018. He’d paid his dues as a Dolphins assistant coach for seven seasons to begin his career thinking it would lead to something, only to get coldly dismissed when they fired coach Adam Gase.
That made Johnson question everything, including the purpose of simply following along and waiting his turn.
“I didn’t know if I’d have another opportunity, so I said if I do, all hell’s breaking loose,” he said. “I’m going to just go full steam ahead and let the chips fall where they may. That’s been my mindset.
“I have zero fear of failure at this point. Hopefully the guys around me rally to that as well.”
That attitude made him a great fit with Lions coach Dan Campbell, who hired him to a low-level position and gradually promoted him to offensive coordinator. Holding fiercely to what he told himself in 2018, Johnson became the most innovative and overwhelming offensive coordinator in the league.
Packers safety Xavier McKinney complained in 2024 that the Lions’ offense set out to “embarrass people.” He was right. Johnson replied casually, “We’re trying to score a touchdown every time.”
There’s only one speed.
That’s why the playoff loss to the Rams still bothers Johnson even though the Bears went into last season widely predicted to be .500 at best. He couldn’t tolerate the idea of anything less than contending for a championship and was emboldened by a 9-3 start.
“When you get rolling like that and you have the confidence that you can win every single time you hit the grass, it hurts,” Johnson said. “I don’t care what the expectations were outside of the building to start the season. We had a lot of momentum going. So to fall short, it adds fuel to the fire for what we’re trying to accomplish this year.”
There’s a sense when sitting across from him that he could never be content. No matter what he achieves with the Bears, it won’t be enough. They’ve long needed someone that driven — a relentless, obsessive leader who brings that ferocity out of his players. There’s no doubt they have it now.