Tight end Cole Kmet was lined up in the wrong spot — by about maybe a yard — as the Bears snapped the ball during an OTA practice last month. Ben Johnson, the first-time head coach, stopped practice, shouted a series of staccato obscenities, and told his team to run the play again.
It’s a scene that happens all the time in the offseason. This year, though, it feels different.
“They’re relentless on the details,” said Kmet, who is now on his fourth Bears head coach, counting interim Thomas Brown. “I think that’s something that may be a little unique from what I’ve had in the past. Not saying other coaches weren’t detailed, but it’s like an obsession with the details — and you can feel that from [Johnson].
“He just can’t let it go.”
Johnson sits at a steady simmer during practice, ready to boil at the slightest agitation.
Players are learning not to take it personally. Johnson stopped the play because Kmet was in the wrong spot and unable to run his route at the proper angle. Johnson told him later, with a smile, that all he was trying to do was “get you the damn football.’”
There are times Johnson blends in at practice —he typically wears navy head-to-toe, with the script B cap reserved for the Bears head coach. But there’s no mistaking who’s in charge the second a player lines up in the wrong spot, or quarterback Caleb Williams calls a play in the huddle without the requisite verve, or a running back takes the wrong steps.
Johnson wants things done his way.
“It’s every day,” Kmet said. “And it’s relentless.”
It reminds cornerback Tyrique Stevenson of playing at Georgia, where he spent two seasons before transferring to Miami.
“I’ve been in a program – [with Georgia coach] Kirby Smart and all that — where the details are the main thing,” cornerback Tyrique Stevenson said, “But I’ve never been where it’s like, ‘We’re going to go inside that detail and fix that.’”
Running back D’Andre Swift expected as much, having played for Johnson when the two were in Detroit.
“How Ben wants it has to be to a ‘T,’” Swift said.
Johnson has plenty of practice watching mistakes. The Dolphins posted exactly one winning season when he worked there from 2012-18. His first four seasons in Detroit, before their two-year turnaround, the Lions went 20-44-2.
“I’ve probably seen more bad football than I’ve seen good football over my time in this league,” Johnson said. “It’s just trying not to make the same mistakes as the people I’ve been around, maybe in the past, that I’ve perceived as mistakes.
“I don’t think you can let things slide.”
Last year, the Bears saw what happened when you do. Former head coach Matt Eberflus had his H.I.T.S. acronym and liked to say his staff never walked past a mistake, but that’s exactly what happened as early as training camp. Later, offensive players had to beg Eberflus and coordinator Shane Waldron to coach them harder.
Predictably, their offense was one of the most undisciplined in football. The Bears finished with the fifth-most illegal formation penalties, fifth-most false starts and were tied for 11th-most delays of game.
Johnson’s attention to detail, then, was “needed,” Kmet said.
“I think offensive football is about precision. …” Johnson said. “It’s a constant communication of what that should look like.
“When they hit the mark, we love them up. When we fall short, we gotta let ‘em know so we get it better next time.”
Former Bears head coach Marc Trestman liked to speak to his team not from the front of the meeting room, but the back. His players didn’t respect that. John Fox would chat off to the side early in practice while his assistants made corrections. Matt Nagy was an eager practice coach and liked to throw a few passes during warmups. Eberflus gave players nicknames — cornerback Jaylon Johnson was “Dragon Slayer,” safety Jaquan Brisker was “Mako Shark” and defensive tackle Gervon Dexter was “Dino Dex.”
Bears players have spent the offseason learning Johnson’s idiosyncrasies. Johnson can be charming, outgoing and even sentimental — he wrote a poem about late Bears running back Brian Piccolo and recited it during the team’s annual Piccolo Award presentation in April.
Still, his intensity is never too far below the surface. Bears chairman George McCaskey noticed it from his perch on the elliptical machine on the balcony of the Bears’ weight room. He’d watch Johnson, on the ground floor, dash from station to station, frenetically lifting weights.
“He’s got a ready smile, but don’t be fooled,” McCaskey said. “There’s an intense competitor in there.”
Bears tight end Durham Smythe first saw it seven years ago when he was a Dolphins rookie and Johnson, then 32, was the team’s wide receivers coach. Johnson would wear cleats to practice, line up opposite his wideouts and jam them, trying to teach them the best way to release from the line of scrimmage.
Johnson doesn’t have to do that anymore, Smythe joked, but he’s still wired the same way. He’s intelligent enough, emotionally and otherwise, to walk the line between being intense and a taskmaster. The message is the main thing, whether Johnson stops to correct a veteran or a rookie.
“No matter who’s making the mistake, it gets called out,” Smythe said. “That goes a long way in the locker room … and it establishes a culture, ultimately.”
That’s the hope. The Bears have been here before, though, hoping for a vibe change months before playing a single snap that counts.
“[Johnson] is doing a great job of trying to create culture in a place that’s been asking for it for a while,” backup quarterback Tyson Bagent said. “And with that comes being unwavering in what you say and how you act.”