When the rumors were swirling that Ben Johnson might consider the Jacksonville Jaguars job, one of the persistent arguments mentioned was his desire to get out of the NFC North. It is one of the toughest divisions in the NFL, having just sent three teams to the playoffs. If he wants to maximize his chances to win, he’d seek a weaker division, right? It turns out that the people who made that argument have no concept of the person Johnson is. He set the record straight on 1920 Football Drive.
Make no mistake. He had no intention of ducking the NFC North. Quite the opposite. It was his goal to stay in the division, which was one of the big selling points of the Chicago Bears. Johnson is a competitor. In his mind, anything in life worth fulfilling is often done the hard way. He wants that challenge. So, this idea that he was eager to duck out of the division was always patently false.
Ben Johnson is no stranger to doing things the hard way.
He was encouraged to take up coaching in college and got his start as a graduate assistant for Boston College. From there, he joined the Miami Dolphins and worked multiple odd jobs for the organization, putting in tons of extra time. That hard work was rewarded with promotions until he was forced to leave in 2019. He had to start for the bottom again in Detroit and took up the challenge. Three years later, he was made their offensive coordinator. It is easy to understand why he believes facing the toughest challenges made him a better coach. That might explain why he wanted the Bears job. Few represent a bigger challenge, given how difficult it has been for previous coaches to get the organization turned around. Perhaps this is the type of person Chicago needed.
Ummm,not a great revelation because Ben said as much in his introductory press conference 3 weeks ago.
Tom Brady offered him the Raiders job. That might be challenging, but getting McCaskey to consent to allowing the challenge to be “football only,” instead of “political” BEFORE being “football,” signed their fate. The political maneuvering of forcing him to interview with the Raiders would have pissed me off, so I’m assuming other people feel the same way. If Trent Baalke in Jacksonville wasn’t a political barrier, Liam Coen made that obvious. All these rich people think an extra nickel and some insincere flattery does it. Why would anyone want to be around losers like that McCaskey might not know… Read more »
I can understand my HC Ben on a personal basis. His demand for challenge facing the odds is similar to my chess playing. Typically, I would win 99%+ of my matches. So against well above average challengers, I would often allow them, mostly unknowingly, to gain major advantages against me, many times to the point that they should win within 2 to 4 moves. Then, I would try my best to assert my will to win. In one match, I was one move away from losing and I had imagined 13 moves in advance for me to win. It was… Read more »
Confidence is good. It’s better when you have the ability to back it up. Hopefully, this time the coach really does.
My HC Ben knows only one way to do things–the right and proper way. As I had been saying for so long: his hire was a virtual slam dunk. Most everything else was merely window dressing for the Bears and him. Thanks George, Virginia, and Eddie George to making the dream come true asap.