Bears coach Ben Johnson has lit a fire under his players a few times in his first year on the job, and he went there again in hopes of getting their attention ahead of the wild-card game against the Packers on Saturday.
In what was supposed to be a tuneup for the playoffs, the Bears fell flat Sunday against the Lions in their final regular-season game and lost 19-16. They didn’t play well on either side of the ball, but Johnson was especially irritated by the offense and its inability to execute one of his “simpler” game plans of the season.
In his postgame news conference, he ripped into the offense for digging a 16-0 hole and warned the team at large that it “can’t afford” for any unit to play that poorly in the playoffs. Before he walked to the podium, he unloaded an unfiltered version of those thoughts in the locker room.
He believed it was received “fairly well,” but he’d find out soon.
“We’ll see what it looks like here this week,” Johnson said Monday. “That’s really the end-all, be-all is the response we’ll get over the course of practice.
“I didn’t tell them anything that they didn’t already know. We’re capable of a lot on offense. The standard is very high, and when we’ve fallen short, we call it out, address it and get better from it.”
Johnson’s intensity sets him apart from any other Bears coach since Mike Ditka and it has sparked the team’s turnaround, but he can’t be on 10 about every issue every time — especially when he emphasizes his point by going public with it.
And not all issues require a fiery reprimand — he has to pick his spots. The lead-up to a playoff game is a good one.
It seemed to work the other times. Johnson snapped at quarterback Caleb Williams and the offense in early August over pre-snap errors, warning, “If it continues like that, we’re not going to win many games.” When the Bears slipped again with “really sloppy football” in their final preseason game a few weeks later, Johnson openly mulled the possibility of downsizing his playbook going into the season.
Most notably, he fumed about imprecision after an 0-2 start, asserting that the Lions outworked the Bears in a 52-21 loss in Week 2 and decrying that their “practice habits are yet to reflect a championship-caliber team.”
Those messages landed, resulting in improvements in the short term and cumulatively. Johnson’s credibility grew as the Bears kept winning.
“You just trust your gut,” Johnson said of that aspect of his job. “The role of the head coach is not to be a cheerleader. It’s to say it like it is. If something pops up and I feel like it needs to be said, then I say it. If I don’t, then we keep it moving.”
Players were off Monday, but when they get back to Halas Hall on Tuesday, there will be a reckoning of their performance against the Lions. Even in a short week, Johnson is too disciplined to sweep those mistakes aside. As defensive tackle Grady Jarrett said Sunday, “If you’re going to take a loss, make it a lesson.”
The coaching staff will hit on those issues early, then move on to a walk-through to lay out their game plan for the Packers, whom they faced twice last month. The Bears lost on the final play Dec. 7 at Lambeau Field and won on the final play Dec. 20 at Soldier Field.
In a matchup this tight, there’s no margin for even a little sloppiness. If there’s ever a time for Johnson to get on the team about making sure everything runs the way it should, it’s now.
