There were calls for tougher coaching and sharper attention to detail coming out of Halas Hall throughout last season from the Bears’ backups to quarterback Caleb Williams and eventually general manager Ryan Poles. Williams practically begged for someone to come in and coach him hard after the seemingly passive, directionless approach of the previous staff.
Everyone got exactly what they asked for Wednesday in Ben Johnson’s first practice of training camp — especially the quarterback.
Williams had a rough morning that started with a pick-six to linebacker Tremaine Edmunds on the first snap of 11-on-11 work and later felt Johnson’s fire when the first-string offense couldn’t get lined up correctly in seven-on-seven drills. After multiple pre-snap issues, Johnson couldn’t watch anymore and yelled, “You’re out,” to the entire unit.
“That’s on par for how Ben is,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “If you’re not doing it right, he’s going to get you out and he’s not going to just [let] that stuff continue. It’s just a lesson to us that you’ve got to be on the details.”
The Bears should expect more of the same, especially after Johnson expressed urgency in the “race” to get ready for the Sept. 8 season opener against the Vikings. Everything might not be perfect to start the season, but players certainly won’t be complaining about practices being too lax as they did last September under former coach Matt Eberflus and offensive coordinator Shane Waldron.
That goes for the defensive side, too, where coordinator Dennis Allen steps in with a reputation for never letting anything slide. He has three decades of experience, including 14 years as a head coach or coordinator, and seems to mostly have autonomy on that side of the ball like when former coach Matt Nagy had esteemed defensive coordinator Vic Fangio on staff.
Allen opened his first practice by having the defense do up-downs while the offense ran through individual drills.
“It’s all part of building the culture of what type of defense we’re going to be,” he said. “You have to pay the toll. You have to pay the price. It’s a privilege to be on this defense. We’ve been doing that on every defense that I’ve been associated with since 2009. It’s a way to mentally train players to be tough and push through adversity.”
Between Allen’s intensity and Johnson’s temperament, there’s no room for coasting. The new staff has no allegiance to players that came in under Eberflus and won’t hesitate to shake up the depth chart.
“I love that from the first play we are going, we are competing,” linebacker T.J. Edwards said. “[Johnson’s] expectations are high. That’s what it should be.”
A new way of doing things is long overdue for a team that went 15-36 over the last three seasons. There’s no sense in clinging to anything about the approach that got the Bears to that point.
Johnson is here for his offensive acumen and vision for developing Williams, but the Bears also hired him to straighten them out.
Plenty slipped through the cracks under the last few coaching staffs, and that can’t keep happening. The way for Johnson to stop that is to insist upon precision from Day 1. If he eliminates exasperating and avoidable snafus such as not getting the offense lined up right or not breaking the huddle early enough in practice, it should translate to a smarter operation during the season.