Bears' Ben Johnson Pursuit Gets Amazing Update on Monday Morning

The Chicago Bears finished the 2024 season with a 24-22 u[set of the Green Bay Packers on Sunday. While ending the season on a high note with a victory is nice, all the focus now turns to the head coaching search. The Bears must hire the correct head coach to maximize Caleb Williams's development.

The current Lions offensive coordinator, Ben Johnson, is at the top of most people's list for achieving this. However, last week, there was heavy speculation that Johnson would end up in Jacksonville. This resulted from a Greg Huntington radio appearance on a Jacksonville radio station. Huntington has a relationship with Lions quarterback coach Mark Brunell from their time on the Jaguars and is considered a solid source on the matter.

Huntington claimed he talked to Brunell after the Lions and Jaguars game earlier this season. Brunell told Huntington, "Johnson wants the Jacksonville job because he likes the idea of Trevor Lawrence."

As a result of this clip, Bears fans started to freak out at the thought of not getting Johnson. Thankfully, the likelihood of this happening got a bit slimmer since the Jaguars retained general manager Trent Baalke.

Bears News: Jaguars Take Step Back in Ben Johnson Sweepstakes

Speculation has been floating around that Johnson may want to pick his own general manager wherever he becomes head coach. While that has not been confirmed the Jaguars retaining Baalke makes that impossible for Johnson to do.

That said, the Bears are also likely to retain their general manager, Ryan Poles. Like Jacksonville, that could throw a wrench into Johnson wanting to be in Chicago. Even so, Johnson may still be willing to come to Chicago over Jacksonville for an opportunity to work with Williams.

It seems that fans and some people within the NFL dislike Baalke's vision and think he makes the job undesirable. While Bears fans and media have picked apart Poles lately, coming into this season, many thought he built at least a decent roster.

Obviously, things didn't turn out as planned, but there seemed to be some vision there, unlike in Jacksonville, where they have offensive weapons but nothing on defense.

The biggest hurdle now for Johnson to Chicago is the organization admitting its faults and working to fix them. Understanding how the team normally operates, that won't be an easy thing to work out of ownership. Nevertheless, that may be the only way the Bears can get Johnson, other than giving him a huge contract, of course.

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