No One Has Ever Pulled This Off Before… Until Ben Johnson Took Over The Bears
People have been trying to quantify how special the 2025 season was for the Chicago Bears. The organization has been part of some amazing single-season turnarounds before. They went from 5-11 to 13-3 in 2001, 5-11 to 11-5 in 2005, and 6-10 to 12-4 in 2018. Yet something about this team felt different. They weren’t winning in your typical Bears way with great defense and a strong running game. This was driven by their pairing of young quarterback Caleb Williams and offensive wizard head coach Ben Johnson.
No fewer than seven 4th quarter comebacks were required to reach 11-6 and win the NFC North title. The sheer resilience in the face of defeat became a weekly ritual, something that hasn’t been typical of Bears teams in decades. In a span of four months, they secured their first top-10 offense in 12 years, broke the Green Bay Packers’ grip on the rivalry by beating them for the division title, and then won their first playoff game in 15 years.
People haven’t fully grasped how insane all of that truly was, so Eli Ong of WGN News put it in perspective. Johnson is the first head coach to take over a league-worst offense, win his division, and win a playoff game in his first year. Ever.
Ben Johnson shouldn’t have been able to do what he did.
Keep in mind who he’s being mentioned alongside. Jim Fassel was the New York Giants’ head coach for seven seasons. In that time, he made the playoffs three times and reached the Super Bowl in 2000. Sean McVay is, of course, one of the best head coaches in the NFL, reaching two Super Bowls already and knocking on the door of a third. He won a Lombardi trophy in 2001. Based on track record, it’s pretty clear that any coach who accomplishes what Johnson just did will likely be in a Super Bowl at some point.
It offers further proof that Chicago hit a grand slam with this hire. Ben Johnson was one of those rare coaches who everybody knew was destined for big things. The Bears never hire coaches like that. Not once in their century-long existence had the organization landed what everybody in the NFL considered the best coach on the market. They came close a few times. They interviewed Bill Belichick in 1999 and Bruce Arians in 2013. It never quite came together.
Johnson’s arrival feels like the moment where they finally took a big swing and made perfect contact.