Good morning, Bears fans!
If you missed last Friday’s newsletter, Bears By 7 is moving to 2x a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays) until the start of training camp.
The schedule is more than enough for the NFL’s only news desert on the calendar and it’ll free me up to write some deeper dives (like today’s) and work on some more long-term projects. That first practice will be here before we know it!
8️⃣9️⃣ Days Until The Season Opener
🎂 Bears Birthdays: Josh Sitton (40)
Where does Ben Johnson rank among NFL coaches (objectively)?
The Bears broke minicamp for summer last week and coach Ben Johnson was asked how he was going to spend his next six weeks of free time.
Friday afternoons in the Wrigley Field bleachers?
A trip to Great America with the kids?
Maybe some time on a boat?
Nope. Johnson instead said he was looking forward to doing a deep dive on running back concepts the Miami Dolphins have run in recent years.
“I can’t wait to dive into his cutups,” said Johnson, referring to new Bears RB coach (and old Dolphins staff member) Eric Studesville. “They did some really unique things.”
On a “red meat for Bears fans” scale, it was a 12.
Johnson has been in Halas Hall barely over a year and we’ve already bought into the idea he never leaves. I think Johnson knows this and enjoys feeding into that legend, even if he is planning on watching hours of Dolphins film.
Truth is, there isn’t much Johnson can do wrong with us right now. After suffering through the ineptitude of Trestman-Fox-Nagy-Eberflus, we’ve fallen head over heels.
Johnson’s early success has made us talk about him like SNL’s Superfans used to talk about Mike Ditka … a living tall tale, incapable of failure and eminently able to deliver glory to the fine city of Chicago.
Whether not those lizard brain impulses will be proven false remains to be seen. Matt Nagy did win Coach of the Year in 2018, after all.
But our quick and early faith in Ben Johnson makes me want to take an objective look at where Johnson ranks on the list of current NFL coaches. As a starting point, I texted a national NFL writer friend on Monday morning and asked him where he thought he landed.
“I don’t know, 10?” he quickly texted back. “It’s so hard to tell after just one year. Is he Sean McVay … or is he Ben McAdoo, Matt Nagy, etc, etc?”
But here’s the thing: If you asked most Bears fans — the ones who watched Johnson coach 19 games last season — I don’t think we’d say it’s hard to tell after just one year.
And that 10 seems a little low for all the love and trust we’re giving him.
So where does Johnson actually rank?
Let’s dive in.
NBC Sports ranked the coaches earlier this offseason and placed Johnson 13th, behind all three NFC North coaches. I rank him a tad higher.
Let’s show the work …
