When the two were together in Detroit, Bears coach Ben Johnson would let wide receiver Kalif Raymond in on an occasional secret. He would show Raymond a play and tell him exactly how an opponent two weeks into the future would defend it.
‘‘He’ll blurt something out, like, ‘Yeah, watch this. This same play, watch this in two weeks,’ ’’ Raymond said after the first of the Bears’ three mandatory minicamp practices Tuesday. ‘‘He’s like, ‘I already know what this safety is going to do two weeks from now. In two weeks, watch what we do to this guy.’
‘‘Sure enough, you come in two weeks, and it’s, like, touchdown.’’
Johnson enjoys the cat-and-mouse game he has to play with opposing defensive coordinators. He’s just not particularly worried about it in June.
‘‘We’re so multiple in what we do and what we put on tape,’’ Johnson said. ‘‘It’s really not a huge concern of mine of teams feeling like they’ve got a bead on it.’’
Johnson didn’t merely transplant the Lions’ offense when he joined the Bears before last season. He built something different, with pieces from his former place and certain ideas he believes in as a play-caller. Phrasing was different. Most important, so were the players.
A year after Johnson debuted his scheme with the Bears, however, there’s no question defensive coordinators around the NFL have spent the offseason trying to find answers for it. Johnson is self-aware enough to self-scout every week during the season and, more expansively, during the offseason. He leans on his coaching staff along the way.
‘‘Watching the way he processes things, the cast that he has around him — the coaches [are] around him . . . because he knows what he’s trying to do and his ideas,’’ Raymond said. ‘‘He’s got an expansive mind.’’
The Bears know what they’ve put on tape; the question is how they want to complement it. Johnson has to strike a balance between continuing to call the staples he believes in, whether he disguises them or not, and adding wrinkles opposing coordinators haven’t seen before.
Johnson keeps up with NFL trends. He has been using multiple tight ends for years, something the league finally is finding fashionable. Still, he prioritizes the building blocks of his offense — basics that enable him to post a reliable running game and a threatening passing attack, in that order.
When Johnson decides to have fun with trick plays or to put players in unusual spots, it’s only because the building blocks have been strong. The Bears still stress those every day, Johnson said, probably to the point of annoyance. During the early part of this offseason, they spent weeks doing little more than fundamentals.
Having quarterback Caleb Williams’ improvisational skills helps the Bears be unique, too.
‘‘There is a lot of unpredictability that comes along with it,’’ Johnson said. ‘‘As he continues to grow and develop, if the structure of the play is there for him, then he’ll take it. But what he can do out of structure is really unique, and I think it makes us even more difficult to defend.’’
Johnson prefers to focus more of his play-calling brainstorm sessions on finding ways to get his playmakers (wide receivers Luther Burden and Rome Odunze, tight ends Colston Loveland and Cole Kmet and running backs D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai) involved than on what’s awaiting him on the defensive side.
‘‘The challenge is making sure that we’re all coordinated and on the same page and putting them all in a spot to succeed,’’ he said. ‘‘But I love the challenge of looking at Luther Burden and how we get him the ball and maximize what he does best, along with Rome and Colston and Cole.
‘‘We have this whole slew of weapons we’re looking to maximize. I think that’s the fun part. The plays don’t matter so much to me; it’s more so, ‘How do we get these guys the ball in space to do what they do so well?’ ’’
At this time last year, the NFL hadn’t seen Loveland with the ball in his hands. The Bears hadn’t really, either, because a shoulder injury kept him from practicing until training camp. Burden was a rookie, too, and was limited by offseason injuries.
Burden grabbed the attention of the league last season — ‘‘He’s the truth, nothing but the truth,’’ Loveland said — and Loveland led the team in receiving yards. Johnson said the goal this season is to keep adding to Loveland’s route tree, which should make him even more dangerous.
Defensive coordinators whose teams are on the Bears’ schedule already are circling those two players. Johnson is, too, even with the Bears’ first game more than three months away.
‘‘Yeah, sure, maybe there might be a little more awareness [around the league] now,’’ Loveland said. ‘‘But . . . there’s a lot of dudes on the field who can make a play.
‘‘So pick your poison.’’
