It seems too good to be true, but here it is: The Bears went out and got the top coaching candidate in the market, outdueling Tom Brady along the way, and landed the guy everyone wanted them to get.
They chose Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson as their new coach Monday and were working to finalize a contract as of the afternoon, a source said. Johnson is widely regarded as one of the smartest offensive minds in the sport and has turned down multiple suitors over the last three hiring cycles while waiting for the ideal situation to arise.
He saw that at Halas Hall, where the Bears have a promising quarterback in Caleb Williams along with other young talent, a bevy of salary-cap space and draft capital. The team went 5-12 this season, but the right coach could turn it around quickly with resources like that.
It’s no guarantee of success, but it’s rare for the Bears to make such an aggressive and universally applauded move. Perhaps it signals, as general manager Ryan Poles and president Kevin Warren have asserted, that they are serious about doing everything possible to become a contender.
They did, of course, take a meandering path to end up hiring the unanimous top candidate. The Bears interviewed 17 people for the job and had more on their list that they hadn’t gotten to yet.
Their candidates ranged from Super Bowl-winning coaches Pete Carroll and Mike McCarthy to Tennessee State coach Eddie George, they called the Steelers to inquire about Mike Tomlin and at one point they even had interest in talking to Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman after the national championship game.
The search looked like it might last forever before they stunned the NFL by agreeing with Johnson.
However they arrived there, it was a tremendous victory.
The Raiders were believed to be a strong competitor, if not the favorite, for Johnson and launched a recruiting blitz led by Brady, who is a minority owner. They even interviewed Commanders assistant general manager Lance Newmark, a longtime friend of Johnson who was thought to be his preference in a coach-GM pairing.
At 38, Johnson is a rising star in coaching. Five teams pursued him a year ago, and he turned down the Commanders as they were flying to meet him to try to nail down a deal.
As coordinator, he took over a Lions offense that was 25th in scoring in 2021 and vaulted it to fifth in his first season. They finished fifth again in 2023 and led the league in scoring this season at 33.2 points per game.
The Bears, meanwhile, were 28th in scoring this season at 18.2 points per game and haven’t finished higher than 18th since 2018.
The Lions went 15-2 this season and captured the top seed in the NFC. Had they reached the Super Bowl, as most expected, the Bears would’ve had to wait another week before they could interview Johnson in person, but when the Commanders knocked out the Lions on Saturday, he was available to hire. Their first interview with him was a videoconference Jan. 11.
Johnson who grew up in the Carolinas, played quarterback as a walk-on at North Carolina in the mid-2000s and got his start in coaching in 2009 as a graduate assistant at Boston College — Poles’ alma mater.
