The Chicago Bears entered the season with plenty of hype and sky-high expectations. They seemed to have found the perfect coach to mold and develop their generational quarterback, but that sentiment has now completely flipped only two weeks into the 2025 NFL season.
The Bears blew a big lead to a first-year quarterback in Week 1, and they were never actually in the game in Week 2. Johnson knows he has to do a better job of calling the game, but it's not entirely on him, as everyone on the 53-man roster has room for improvement.
Addressing the media on Wednesday, the first-year head coach made sure to make a statement and put everybody on notice. As reported by ESPN's Courtney Cronin, he's not satisfied with what he's seeing in practice.
"“Our practice habits are yet to reflect a championship-caliber team."Ben Johnson
Ben Johnson Calls Out Bears Practice Habits
Practice makes perfect, and Johsnon wants to see everybody take a game-like approach every day of the week. Just like Tom Brady and Michael Jordan said, practice has to be even harder than the actual game, so the game is actually easier.
“We should be going to the football, finishing hard,” Johnson said, via Cronin. “We talk about it all the time with the offensive players that our fundamentals, our finish, and our technique, they need to show up in walk-through, they need to show up on the practice field. That’s how it shows up on game day... It’s the little things that you learn in youth league football that even at this level, they make a huge difference."
While the results haven't been there, Johnson's message is an encouraging development. Taking accountability was a major issue during the Matt Eberflus era, and with this being a young roster, it takes strong leadership to fix bad habits.
Johnson already knows what it's like to be a part of a struggling franchise and build it up from the ground up. He was one of Dan Campbell's right hands from the moment the Detroit Lions coach took the reins, and he witnessed firsthand what it takes to turn a team around.
The first thing Campbell did was get everybody in the building to buy in, trust him, and firmly believe that they could put their woes behind them. Hopefully, Johnson will take a page out of his mentor's book and work his magic in the Windy City as well.