CHICAGO — By halftime Sunday, Detroit had already scored 27 points, which most games, including this one, were more than enough to beat the down-and-out Chicago Bears.
But the Lions aren’t out to just take the season series against the worst team in the division, and their offensive coordinator Ben Johnson apparently isn’t just some poindexter offensive coordinator with his nose buried in the call sheet.
“When we came in for halftime he wasn’t very happy with the red zone stuff,” running back Jahymr Gibbs said. “Because the last time we played them we weren’t very good in the red zone. We kicked too many field goals and that allowed them to be in the game. So I think this time, just trying to make the focus on the red zone scoring ‘tudds.’ We still didn’t do a great job with that, so I’m pretty sure he’s going to be on us still about it.”
He’s not wrong, for the second time this season against the Bears, Detroit went only 2-for-5 in the red zone. But this time, the game didn’t come down to a boneheaded coaching mistake. The Lions won easily, 34-17, to clinch the most wins in a season in Detroit history.
All eyes in Chicago were on Johnson, the red zone red ass, who is perhaps the hottest head coaching candidate in football and someone who can likely name his price this offseason.
As it would happen, I cover a team in need of his services. Is he intrigued by the Bears? Sure. Should he have some questions for them? Absolutely.
Johnson helped send the Bears (4-11) to their ninth straight loss, putting them one away from tying their worst losing streak in … the past three seasons. A once-promising season has careened off course. Again.
So for the second consecutive week, I skipped the Bears’ locker room and went to the visitors to discuss their coordinator. Much like the Vikings’ praise of their defensive coordinator, Brian Flores, Lions players couldn’t say enough about Johnson. You’d be happy, too, if you were 13-2 and had just put up 475 yards in front of a bipartisan crowd at Soldier Field
“He’s as detailed as they come, as creative as they come,” tight end Sam LaPorta said. “Just a fantastic coach.”
“He wants us to be great,” Gibbs said. “He pushes us to the limit.”
“I think the way he leads this group,” said former Bears receiver and current Lions wideout Allen Robinson Jr. “It’s the details, it’s the …”
That’s all I got from him because my recorder gave out like a Bears defensive back in pursuit of a streaking Lions wide receiver, but I assure you Robinson, a veteran of many coaches, had a lot of praise for Johnson, particularly on his attention to detail.
The “attention to detail” angle was timely because everyone was obsessed with the trick play the Lions ran that resulted in a touchdown. “Stumble Bum” saw Detroit quarterback Jared Goff and Gibbs fake a collision before Goff found a wide-open LaPorta for the score.
Did Goff hit ’em with the fake stumble?!
📺: #DETvsCHI on FOX
📱: https://t.co/waVpO909ge pic.twitter.com/6xDqZ9BFzV— NFL (@NFL) December 22, 2024
“Our offensive coordinator and our staff do a great job of noticing tendencies, things that happen on tape in rare scenarios,” LaPorta said. “They noticed that on tape and we executed it.”
“It started on Monday with Ben asking me if he thought I could actually fumble on purpose and pick it back up,” Goff said. “I said, ‘I don’t know about that.’ We kind of got off that pretty quickly, and we were just like, let’s just pretend we’re falling or pretend I’m fumbling, but I’m holding on to the ball. I think that part where Gibbs dives really sells the play. I’m only doing half of it. It worked like a charm, and it was nice to score there.”
Several players said it was from a play in the Packers-Bears earlier this season, but press box detective Kalyn Kahler (whom you might know from her previous work at The Athletic) found out that it was actually from a 2023 game, which makes it an even more impressive pull.
“The stuff he comes up with every game is crazy,” Gibbs said.
In that 2023 game, Packers QB Jordan Love really did stumble but the pass he uncorked downfield went incomplete. But in that miscue, Johnson saw an opportunity to take advantage of the Bears defense. And it worked.
Even when the Packers aren’t beating the Bears, they are still beating the Bears, this time via Lions OC Ben Johnson, who took this accidental fumbled snap play from Sept 2023 and turned it into a choreographed “stumble bum” that was a TD today. pic.twitter.com/fJQrtC2LQy
— Kalyn Kahler (@kalynkahler) December 22, 2024
“Before we ran it, we called it a time before, but we didn’t have the right look,” receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown said. “So we killed it and went back to our run play. Knowing Ben, I knew he was going to come back to it.”
They did it early in the third quarter on first-and-10 from the Bears’ 21-yard line. The touchdown made it 34-14.
“We think every play he has is going to work,” St. Brown said. “Ben’s smart. He’s watching tape, tendencies, things that work, things that can work. Almost all the plays that he draws up, there’s a reason behind it, an intent behind it. We understand that.”
Attention to detail is an issue for a team that constantly finds itself getting penalized and punished for its untimely mistakes. The Bears are about as detail-oriented as a 14-year-old on TikTok.
And that leads me back to Detroit’s red-zone “issues” against the Bears. On Sunday, the Lions scored three times in the first quarter, but only one of those was a touchdown, which is why they “only” led 13-0.
That’s a cause for concern in Detroit’s locker room. Meanwhile, scoring in the first quarter is a novelty for the Bears, who have scored just 20 such points all season.
Bears points in the first quarter…
W1 0
W2 3
W3 0
W4 0
W5 7
W6 0
W8 0
W9 0
W10 0
W11 3
W12 7
W13 0
W14 0
W15 0
W16 0— Kevin Fishbain (@kfishbain) December 22, 2024
Johnson seems like an easy choice — if he wants the job. The Bears haven’t had much success with head coaches since Lovie Smith was axed after a season-ending win over the Lions in 2012, but it’s not for a lack of trying. This is their fifth coaching search in 13 years. The two offensive-minded head coaches they hired — Marc Trestman and Matt Nagy — did find a fleeting bit of success.
Trestman crafted a winning offense in 2013, but his general manager, Phil Emery, gave him a bum defense and we found out that Trestman’s leadership skills weren’t as sharp as his offensive teaching ability.
In 2018, Nagy, an offensive coordinator who didn’t really lead the offense in Kansas City, took the Bears to 12 wins and had a workable offense with a developing Mitch Trubisky before it all fell apart.
Robinson was there for the brief Nagy era, and when I asked him what makes a good head coach, he immediately said those familiar three words we’ve heard over the past few weeks.
“Leader of men,” he said, noting that Johnson is such a guy.
Cliched as it might sound, “leader of men” is a real thing. Head coaches need to have the command of not just an entire room but an organization. And Halas Hall is a mess that needs leadership.
We don’t know who has the final say on the next Bears head coach — is it GM Ryan Poles or president Kevin Warren? — nor can we trust that they’ll make the right decision. Matt Eberflus might’ve charmed Poles and the Bears search committee three years ago, but he certainly didn’t prove to be the leader of a winning football team.
The Bears don’t need trick plays with cute names — they’ve been down that road before — what they need is a coach who wins more than he loses.
Johnson has piloted this Lions offense for three seasons and has been a darling of the coaching search news cycle. He passed up opportunities to leave Detroit last offseason. Would he depart for Chicago based on the promise of Caleb Williams, who threw for 334 yards and two touchdowns — including a pretty 45-yarder to Keenan Allen — or will he hold out for a better situation?
“I think he could do whatever he wants to do,” Gibbs said. “He’s just that smart and he has that connection with people. He’s good with people. He’s a good person to be around, too. So I’m pretty sure whatever team (he goes to), if he ever chooses to be a head coach somewhere, players would love him.”
If he wins in Chicago, everyone would.
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(Photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
