Bears Finalizing Hire of Lions’ OC Johnson as Head Coach

Bear necessities ask and you shall receive.

The Chicago Bears are making a splash hire with Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, their long-standing top candidate, to be their next head coach, CBS Sports NFL insider Jonathan Jones reports.

Chicago went the gamut of interviewing 17 candidates for its head coach vacancy, three of which were conducted in person at Halas Hall, with former Commanders/Carolina Panthers coach Ron Rivera, former Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy and current Tennessee State coach Eddie George.

“We’re going to cast a wide net,” general manager Ryan Poles said on January 7. “It’s going to be a diverse group. This will be different backgrounds from offense, defense, special teams, college, pro. We’re turning every stone to make sure we’re doing this the right way … There’s going to be some names that you don’t expect that are going to surprise you because we’re digging deeper than we ever have before.”

The Lions’ dynamic offensive, led by Johnson averaged an impressive 29.0 points per game since he took over as Detroit’s OC in 2022, the most in the NFL in that span. The 33.2 points per game they put up in 2024 paced the league and was the most in a season in franchise history. Detroit’s offense topped the charts at No. 1 in the NFL in slew of key categories during his Lions tenure while working with quarterback Jared Goff.

Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs, aka Sonic, led the NFL in scrimmage touchdowns (20) in 2024, and wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown earned back-to-back first team All-Pro nods in 2023 and 2024 after becoming the first player in Lions history with 100 or more receptions, 1,000 or more receiving yards and 10 or more receiving touchdowns in consecutive seasons.

At the young age of 38, Johnson will now be given the task and opportunity to elevate 2024 first overall pick Caleb Williams and weapons such as wide receiver D.J. Moore, wide receiver Rome Odunze, wide receiver Keenan Allen, tight end Cole Kmet and former Lions running back D’Andre Swift going forward after the Bears had the fifth-worst scoring offense in the league this past season, averaging a sparse 18.2 points per game.

Williams threw for 3,541 passing yards, 20 passing touchdowns and six interceptions while completing 62.5% of his passes for an 87.8 passer rating. The Bears as a franchise have never had a 4,000-yard passer in their 100-plus year history. One of Johnson’s main objectives will be to shore up a makeshift offensive line that allowed Williams to be sacked 68 times in 2024, tied for the third-most ever in a single season. However, many of those sacks can be directly attributed to the Bears quarterback himself with an average time to throw of 3.13 seconds in 2024, the fourth-longest in the entire league.

Williams said on a podcast earlier this month that he was enamored by Johnson’s offense with the Lions.

“I think during our game, I would sit back and watch and try and learn something while I watch,” Williams said. “It was fascinating to watch because he always had wrinkles for counters and things like that throughout the game. I think he’s obviously done really well, so it’d be cool to see how that all goes down.”

The Bears as a team allowed a quarterback pressure rate of 35.4%, which was around league average with a ranking of 18th in the NFL last season. Williams was the first Chicago quarterback to start every game in a season since Jay Cutler in 2009, snapping the longest active drought in the NFL.

Johnson will inherit the NFL’s 13th-ranked scoring defense (21.8 points per game allowed) from the 2024 season with a couple of Pro Bowl building blocks in edge rusher Montez Sweat and cornerback Jaylon Johnson. As Johnson’s former boss Dan Campbell showed, nailing the coordinator hires can dramatically upgrade a franchise’s fortunes. It is time for the first-time NFL head coach in Johnson to build his staff and get to work finding his defensive and special teams running mates in Chicago.