Bears’ Ben Johnson a home-run head coach? Only if you believe, like, everybody

Ben Johnson was a home-run hire by the Bears.

But don’t take my word for it. On a hunch, I confirmed it via a bevy of media sources Friday by googling the first-time head coach’s name as well as “home-run hire” and then watching as headlines from as far back as January flooded my screen like fans rushing for prime bleacher seats at an open training-camp practice.

Experts and writers from all over anointed Johnson a “home run” hire. ESPN, Sports Illustrated and SB Nation happened to be the first three search results I clicked, but those outlets had lots of long-ball-loving company. A local story on WGN’s site claimed Johnson, who turned 39 in May, was viewed “almost unanimously” as “a home-run hire.” Who’d have imagined the one thing society would come together on in 2025 is that the new Bears coach is totally awesome?

On the other hand, there’s Bills coach Sean McDermott, who must have been a swing-and-miss hire or, at best, a lazy-pop-fly hire when the team made him its coach in 2017. This, too, is fairly easy to glean, because a search for his name and “hot seat” revealed the in-over-his-head McDermott has led the Bills to only five consecutive AFC East titles and a scant seven postseason appearances in his eight years. Jeez, no wonder a bunch of Super Bowl-starved Bills fans want him gone.

Buffalo can have McDermott. We’ve got Johnson, a true big bopper in the making. Right?

Look, forgive the sarcasm. Or don’t. The point is, NFL observers always make a huge deal out of whatever offensive or defensive coordinator in the league is deemed the next big thing in head coaching. And no team leans into that quite like the Bears, whose last 13 hires included one man — John Fox in 2015 — with previous NFL head coaching experience.

The Bills rolled up to Halas Hall on Friday to practice against the Bears ahead of the teams’ preseason matchup Sunday at Soldier Field. Before things got started, Johnson met with reporters and shared some of the things that might actually be less than awesome about his new team.

Such as quarterback Caleb Williams’ accuracy.

“We’ve been underneath the bar [so far],” Johnson said.

And the left tackle position.

“We just haven’t seen [a deserving starter] yet,” he said.

And the development of his first Bears offense relative to the intricacies of his system that were so successful in his coordinator years in Detroit.

“We’re not ready for some of those plays yet,” he admitted.

Meanwhile, McDermott’s Bills have no such worries. Their superstar QB, Josh Allen, is too good to be nitpicked. Their offensive line — back intact — allowed the fewest sacks in the league in 2023 and again in 2024, when the Bears’ pathetic line got Williams driven into the dirt more than anyone else on the planet.

The Bears are widely seen as a team destined to finish in the .500 range, and that’s assuming the offense progresses and Johnson indeed has a knack for running the whole show. With the Bills — a team so close to the Super Bowl, it can taste it — on the same practice fields, it was a reminder of how far away the Bears still are and how many times the Bears’ “next big thing” has turned out to be nothing to get excited about at all.

In 1993, the Bears gave highly successful Cowboys defensive coordinator Dave Wannstedt his first chance at the wheel of an NFL ship. His defense had been the best and fiercest around. Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson had called Wannstedt’s ascendancy “inevitable” and promised he’d be “tremendous” for whichever team was lucky enough to get him, and there were multiple serious suitors. Shortly after Wannstedt arrived, then-Bears president Michael McCaskey noted a “terrific surge of energy,” which the Sun-Times confirmed, writing that “enthusiasm [was] running rampant.”

And then Wannstedt’s Bears went 40-56. He was followed by the Jaguars’ successful defensive coordinator, Dick Jauron, who arrived with the Bears in a 10-game losing skid against the Packers. Not to worry about that, boasted then-Bears vice president of player personnel Mark Hatley, who had the brilliant idea to liken Jauron to Vince Lombardi. Some things can’t be made up.

Much more recently, the Bears hired Matt Nagy from the Chiefs in 2018, the Fox debacle having mercifully concluded. Nagy’s former boss, Andy Reid, reportedly called him the best candidate ever to come from the Reid coaching tree, an amazing compliment. NFL.com wrote Nagy “fit(s) the bill brilliantly.” CBS Sports pronounced Nagy’s hiring “an A-plus if” — uh, yeah, kind of a big if — “[Mitch] Trubisky takes the next step.”

Jauron was 35-45 with the Bears. Nagy went from 12 wins to eight, to eight again and then to six.

We won’t drag you through recollections of Matt Eberflus, but we will point out the Bears haven’t won a playoff game since the 2006 season. And if you can read that and still consider Johnson a lock to make great memories in Chicago, here’s to your cockeyed optimism.

But this is the NFL, where highly respected coordinators gone bust as head coaches are multitudinous.

Dick LeBeau, Marty Mornhinweg, Rod Marinelli, Steve Spagnuolo, Josh McDaniels, Vic Fangio … just some names. Maybe Johnson is a better coach than any of them. Maybe he’ll be the one to clear the outfield fence.

Some of us are going to need to see it first. Batter up.