Three months after the Commanders broke Tyrique Stevenson’s brain, they broke Ben Johnson’s heart.
The Bears head coach was Lions’ offensive coordinator when they hosted the Commanders on Jan. 18 in the divisional round of the NFC playoffs. The Lions have never won a Super Bowl — they’d won only three playoff games since 1958 — but eyed a chance to break through, having earned the No. 1 seed and homefield advantage throughout the playoffs.
Instead, the Lions turned the ball over five times. They tried to beat the Commanders in a shootout, and fell 45-31.
Two days later, the Bears hired Johnson as their head coach. Just as the Bears cornerback will have a chance to avenge his Fail Mary flop, Johnson will get an opportunity to beat the team that ended his Lions career Monday night at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland.
With the Lions defense weakened by injuries, Johnson threw the playbook at the Commanders. Quarterback Jared Goff threw the ball 40 times — and had three of those passes intercepted and one returned for a touchdown.
“You feel a little bit of pressure on offense to go score-for-score, and you don’t want to fall behind by two scores against a good team like that,” Johnson said this week. “So, might have been a little bit more aggressive with the play calls and got away from the game plan a little bit based on how that game went.”
Johnson had running back David Montgomery throw a pass on a trick play, and it gained 20 yards. When he asked receiver Jameson Williams to do the same in a 10-point game with 12 minutes to play, he threw an interception. Perhaps that’s why Commanders defense coordinator Joe Whitt called Johnson “gimmicky” this week, saying that “trick plays are going to be alive” again Monday.
“You go in with every intention, believing you’re going to win, but we made too many mistakes …” said Bears receivers coach Antwaan Randle-El, who served the same role with the Lions last year. “It wasn’t what we were accustomed to doing, and it bit us.”
Lost in the crushing loss was the fact that the Lions totaled 521 yards, the third-most of the Johnson era, against the Commanders. That’s proof of concept for Monday night — provided that the Bears defense is stout enough to ensure Johnson doesn’t have to chase points the way he did in the playoffs.
“There’s some space in that defense, to try to make a play,” Randle El said.
It’s up to the Bears to make them. One week after averaging a season-best 6.75 yards per play against the Cowboys, the Bears averaged a season-worst 4.23 in Game 4 against the Raiders. Before marching for a fourth-quarter touchdown drive to take the lead, the Bears averaged just 2.4 yards per play.
They can’t expect to beat the Commanders if they play the way they did in Las Vegas. The Commanders allow 20.2 points per game, the 10th-least in the league. Johnson compared the Commanders’ energy — fast and violent — to that of the Raiders, given that Commanders coach Dan Quinn is a former Pete Carroll pupil.
“Shoot, you need to play complementary football to beat this team,” Johnson said. “This is a really good football team … These guys play hard. They play inspired football.”
Monday night’s game will be full of storylines, from the Bears drafting quarterback Caleb Williams one spot ahead of the Commanders’ Jayden Daniels to the Bears having chosen former head coach Matt Eberflus over Quinn, who was one of three finalists.
Then there’s Stevenson, the Bears cornerback who committed one of the most inexcusable gaffes of the past decade at Northwest Stadium last year, turning his back to the snap as the Commanders ran a Hail Mary pass that would land in the arms of the receiver he was supposed to be covering.
The Bears spiraled downhill from there, losing 10 games in a row and firing offensive coordinator Shane Waldron and eventually Eberflus.
“Going back to a hostile environment,” Stevenson said. “[Commanders fans] are going to do their best job to rattle me as much as they can. … The best thing I can do is come out here and show these 10 [defensive teammates] I’m locked in and ready to go.”
Asked whether he thought the Bears were looking to avenge the Fail Mary loss, Johnson demurred — “You’d have to talk to those guys about it,” — but it’s clear the Bears new head coach looks for motivation anywhere he can find it.
Including his own past.
Johnson said last year there was “no irony” in the fact that the Lions were getting ready to face the Commanders in the playoffs, given that Johnson interviewed for the Commanders head coaching position that went to Quinn in January 2024. He might have landed it, too, had he wanted the job.
After the Lions lost to the 49ers in the NFC title game, the Commanders arranged for a second interview — only for Johnson to change his mind while Commanders executives were flying to Michigan to meet with him. Johnson has said that he wasn’t ready to leave Detroit.
After last season, he was. The Commanders made sure his season ended earlier than he wanted it to.
