CHICAGO — Kevin Byard III remembers how badly the Chicago Bears lost to the Detroit Lions in Week 2, but also how, in the aftermath, Ben Johnson didn’t lose it.

Johnson, the former Lions offensive coordinator, was humbled by his ex-team 52-21 at Ford Field, stumbling to an 0-2 start as a first-time head coach.

“There’s TVs around this building that be on these networks,” Byard said of the early critics, the doubters. “The main thing he (Johnson) just preached to us is we recognize outside of the building, everybody thinks the sky is falling, but we’re going to continue to trust the process.

“And I think that was the thing that spoke heavy to all of us. … When you lose in the NFL usually, that week the building is kind of tense. Nobody likes losing, it’s not a good feeling. But he went up there saying, ‘Hey, we’re good. We’re going to continue to trust the process. We’re going to turn this thing around. We’re still a good team.’ He basically just continued to instill that belief in us.”

As Johnson, 39, gets ready to face his former team again Sunday the circumstances couldn’t be more different.

The Bears are 11-5 and have clinched the NFC North Division for the first time since 2018 after finishing in last place the season before. If they beat the Lions, this time at Soldier Field, they’ll secure the No. 2 seed in the conference.

Regardless of the outcome, he’s assured of becoming just the second Bears coach since the 1970 merger to finish with a record above .500 in his first season in Chicago, joining Matt Nagy in 2018 (12-4, .750).

Johnson will have a .706 winning percentage if the Bears win, .647 if they lose.

But more than just a better number in the standings, a win would represent a full-circle moment for Johnson and the team.

A turning point … or just a benchmark?

There were some hard feelings in Detroit about Johnson leaving for a division rival, so the rout had some personal stakes.

“You always remember how you felt in those moments,” Johnson said earlier this week. “It’s never a good taste when you get beat by that so handily. The fourth quarter wasn’t even close. So yeah, I’ll leave it at that.”

Assistant head coach/wide receivers coach Antwaan Randle El, another Lions export, also felt the sting of the blowout loss and said Johnson felt it too.

“Yeah, it bothered us to no end and, I mean, yes, it bothered him,” Randle El said. “It’s one thing to lose, but losing the way we did, it’s not, it’s just not (us). … We are a different team than we were Week 2 at the end of the day.”

Afterward, Johnson led the Bears on a four-game winning streak. And after a Week 8 loss to the Ravens in Baltimore, the Bears went on a five-game winning streak.

Randle El stopped short of saying that the slap in the face in Detroit served as a catalyst.

“I don’t think it was a turning point, but it was still getting guys to believe in what we’re doing,” said Randle El, who noted that several members of the coaching staff experienced slow starts before, only to see those teams rattle off consecutive wins.

Also, Johnson said that based on the talent of the roster and work ethic players showed in each camp, he and the staff felt strongly that the group would turn the ship if they stayed the course.

“I think it’s a great lesson to be learned that you don’t jump to conclusions too early,” Johnson said.

Building from scratch (mostly)

By the time the Bears decided to fire Matt Eberflus on Nov. 29, 2024, Johnson already was a top coaching candidate for an upcoming vacancy.

After Johnson’s Lions offense averaged a franchise-record 409.5 yards and a league-high 32.4 points and the Associated Press named him NFL Assistant Coach of the Year, he became the hot name. The Bears hired him on Jan. 21, 2025, making him the franchise’s 18th full-time head coach.

Johnson kept some key coaches from Eberflus’ staff, including tight ends coach Jim Dray, special teams coordinator Richard Hightower and a handful of other assistants, but otherwise made sweeping changes.

Like a lot of head coaches filling out their staffs, Johnson used former relationships and coaches well-versed in familiar systems to guide his selections.

He named Dennis Allen as his defensive coordinator. Allen had served the same role when Johnson’s Lions boss Dan Campbell was assistant head coach for the New Orleans Saints in 2020. Allen also had been Saints head coach from 2022-24.

Johnson looked to a couple of other Saints who worked under Campbell, elevating Declan Doyle to a first-time offensive coordinator and luring offensive line coach Dan Roushar out of retirement.

Johnson brought in Randle El and quarterbacks coach J.T. Barrett from the Lions and hired Al Harris as defensive backs coach and passing game coordinator.

Harris had been a coaching intern on Joe Philbin’s 2012 Miami Dolphins, when Johnson, a former Boston College tight ends coach, first cut his teeth in the NFL as an offensive assistant coach.

Running backs coach Eric Bieniemy told the ChicagonTribune that in his opinion, Roushar was one of Johnson’s most critical hires, but one could argue that Bieniemy has made as much of an impact on Johnson’s run-based scheme.

Under Bieniemy, lead back D’Andre Swift has rebounded from last season’s career-low 3.8 yards per carry to a second-best 4.9, while rookie Kyle Monangai (4.7) has helped form a powerful 1-2 punch.

Bieniemy said he and Johnson had a lot of colleagues in common, which led to his hire.

“He was in Detroit (and) he worked with (former offensive coordinator) Darrell Bevell,” Bieniemy said. “I’ve known Darrell Bevell for years, me and Darrell Bevell worked together in Minnesota. …

“(Bears general manager) Ryan Poles, me and Poles worked together out in Kansas City. … We’ve had some interconnections that have always kept us basically connected at the hip, in a sense.”

Bieniemy said if there are traits Johnson’s coaches have in common, it’s “consistency, hard work, guys that appreciate just the fundamentals of being the best.”

“Ben has done a great job of creating an urgency within the building, not just with the players, but with the coaching staff as well, just hungry to get as good as we can, as fast as we can,” passing game coordinator Press Taylor said.

Added Doyle: “There’s not a lot of egos on the staff. That’s the biggest thing is … guys (are) smart, and then guys with humility, that really is what our coaching staff is littered with.”

That’s a start, but coaches can’t execute on the field.

Byard thought back to the Lions game and how Allen didn’t hold back in the film room.

“It was just some real grown-man talk,” he said.

A lot of coaches can say the right things, but how do they get results? An example, Byard said, is how the defense reviews Wednesday’s practice on Thursday.

“(Allen) literally is going to do a pop quiz and call on a young guy, particularly one who isn’t a starter,” Byard said. “‘Hey, two-by-two, or this formation, what do we think right here?’ And it’s like the young guy, he has to know his stuff.

“It’s like, now you know in your head, like, I’ve got to make sure I go home and study, study my film, study my plays, because I could possibly get called on. Not only does it not look good upon yourself and for the coaches, (other) players in the team, we like, ‘Oh, we can’t depend on this guy because he’s not studying. He don’t know what he’s doing.’ So that’s the accountability part.”

Evidence of a turnaround?

Once the staff and players were in place, Johnson installed the systems over the course of OTAs and camps. Predictably, not everything went smoothly.

Training camp and the early part of the season were plagued by presnap penalties — unforced errors.

Injuries took out key defensive players.

The passing game had its moments but consistent execution was a problem.

Quarterback Caleb Williams’ accuracy was hit and miss.

But as the offensive line has built chemistry, the presnap penalties have become far less frequent.

Since Week 4, with a rally over the Raiders in Las Vegas, Williams has led six fourth-quarter comebacks, the most in franchise history.

The Bears have had the league’s fewest turnovers (10) and the most takeaways (32). Their takeaways in nine consecutive games is the NFL’s longest active streak.

The Bears defense hasn’t allowed an opponent to score in an opening series in eight straight games.

Points per game have jumped from 18.2 in 2024 to 26.6 this season.

Still, even Johnson has said his offense isn’t where he wants it. He set a goal of 70% for Williams’ completion rate, but the quarterback is at 57.9%, last in the league among qualifiers

The defense, despite the takeaways, continues to be a work in progress. The Bears ranked 28th in total defense after Week 2 and hold that same ranking heading into the final week of the regular season.

“We’re constantly improving,” Johnson said. “That’s the goal, at least — we want to continue to get better. We’ve got a lot of young players where each week you do see growth.”

Evolution of the offense

The Bears own the No. 3 total offense (375.8 yards) and No. 3 rushing offense (149.4) in the NFL. Since their Week 5 bye, the Bears rank second in the league in rushing (165.2 yards) and average the third-most total net yards per game in the NFL (391.7).

Johnson was intent on not making a carbon copy of the offense he ran in Detroit, but he did bring certain characteristics to Chicago.

Johnson uses a lot of motion, shifting and personnel versatility — at long as it’s physical.

Players from any position could be used almost anywhere in the formation — as receivers, runners, blockers or decoy.

Heck, against the San Francisco 49ers in Week 17, he used special teams defensive lineman Daniel Hardy as a fullback.

At his heart, Johnson employs outside-zone and power running schemes, and the play-action passing game keys off that.

The Bears have run 496 plays under center, the second most behind the Los Angeles Rams, according to NFL Pro’s Next Gen Stats. In addition, 703 plays this season have used motion, which ranks sixth.

Johnson and his staff have cited several influences, but he said last month: “It was when Bill Lazor took over at Miami (as Dolphins offensive coordinator in 2014), he kind of had this vision of bringing Chip Kelly’s run game and combining it with Mike Martz’s digit-system offense. And so indirectly, I’ve been influenced by that digit system.

“We did it for a couple years, and so I do have a little bit of familiarity in terms of how he would coach some of that stuff. We brought him in, and he’s talked to the staff about it. So, yeah, there are elements of that, but I think I’ve talked about the root of this offense is we’re more of a mutt.”

Bears tight end Durham Smythe has a number of roles in the offense, a lot of it involving the complex blocking scheme.

“It starts with outside zone and it kind of goes from there,” he said. “From early on in the OTAs and training camp, Ben’s big thing was we’re going to be physical in whatever we do, and then as we master things, we’ll add more.”

Smythe overlapped one season (his rookie year) with Johnson in Miami in 2018, when Johnson was promoted to wide receivers coach. Smythe recognizes some current playbook terminology from Adam Gase, a former Bears offensive coordinator (2015) who was Dolphins head coach in 2018.

“(It’s) also kind of a similar tree, like with the outside-zone stuff,” Smythe said. “I know he’s been with a lot of people, but some of it’s similar to what I did in Miami, which is the San Francisco tree.”

Smythe, who’s in his eighth season, said Johnson does a good job of mixing in other concepts, such as the New England Patriots gap scheme and West Coast outside zone from various sources.

“There’s a little bit of the two-tight-end, outside-zone stuff, where there’s no fullback, and then one of us will go to the backfield,” Smythe said. “I’ve played a lot of fullback this year. It makes it fun because there’s a bunch of different schemes, just in terms of a run game, within this offense. So, one play, I’m lining up at the Y, blocking, power, whatever, and then I’m in the backfield ISO’d (isolated) on a MIKE (middle linebacker) or something. … It’s really creative.”

From a defensive perspective, it’s really confusing.

Byard has practiced every week against it, and “it keeps you off-balance a little bit. It’s hard to be able to jump a certain route because this week might be a double move.”

Byard explained that Johnson’s formations “just mess with your rules on defense, as far as the communication and having certain things that you’re used to seeing on defense.”

“I’ve even seen a couple gadget plays in practice that didn’t work in practice,” Byard added. “And normally coaches just throw it out. Ben’s calling it in the game.

“He has that much trust in what’s going on.”

Johnson has expanded the playbook since the Lions game.

“From a shift-and-motion standpoint, we’re able to do so much more now,” he said. “I think our quarterback has a lot to do with that. He has grown immensely in terms of what he can handle.”

Rebuilding Caleb Williams

To be fair, Williams walked in the door with a lot of the traits that Johnson requires, such as leadership, competitiveness and a willingness to do whatever it takes to live up to his potential as the No. 1 draft pick in 2024.

Johnson transformed Williams into a weapon from under center, using play action, when Williams didn’t have a lot of history with either.

Now, 16 games into his second season, Williams is just 270 yards from becoming the franchise’s first 4,000 yard passer in its 106-year history.

Johnson said of the milestone, “There are probably some (teams) who don’t have a 5,000-yard passer, right? So it’s just a number.”

That has been Johnson’s and Williams’ relationship in a nutshell: There’s no such thing as too much to ask.

Johnson has acknowledged repeatedly that he purposely overloaded Williams with his playbook and didn’t softball his expectations about its execution.

“I can’t remember exactly if it was in a game (or camp) or not, but something happened and … I got pissed off, too, and then I ended up waving him off,” Williams vaguely recalled. “And then he lit a fuse into the mic.”

Williams admits he bristled under Johnson’s militaristic coaching at first.

“It took me a while,” he said. “It took me throughout camp. Certain parts, it felt like our relationship was pretty fragile from my perspective.”

Williams said Johnson was on him about everything: drops, footwork, cadence, speed out of the huddle, reading defenses, etc.

“I think the biggest thing is we didn’t just approach Caleb that way, we really approached everybody that way,” Doyle said. “It’s a championship-level standard and we’re not going to bend that to anybody, including the quarterback.”

Added Williams: “It was like, ‘Gee, this dude doesn’t seem like he likes me. (But) he doesn’t have to like me.’ That’s what you kind of realize.”

He also came to realize that that’s just Johnson’s personality. Johnson has given assistants an earful of choice words over the headset.

“He cares so much about the sport, he cares so much about us, he cares so much about winning,” Williams said. “And then when you get off the field, he’s one of the guys, he’s a player’s coach. He laughs and jokes with us. He’s bumping us around.”

Last month, in a rematch with the Green Bay Packers, Williams threw a walk-off touchdown pass in overtime after coaches saw the Packers defense take the bait on an offensive formation.

“I’ve got the best coach in the world,” Williams declared after the game. “Let’s put it that way.”

So does that mean Johnson and Williams are going out for beers or matcha tea?

“We both have the same goals,” Johnson said. “We both care deeply about this team. We care deeply about this city, and I care deeply about his success as well.

“He understands that now, at this point, and you only get to that by spending a lot of time together. … We can be very transparent with each other. … I think we’re mentally very similar. We share a lot of the same competitive drive and we think very much the same way.”

Cult(ure) of personality

When talking to Johnson’s players and coaches throughout the season, one word has come up consistently: “consistent.”

“One thing about Ben, Ben has always been consistent,” Bieniemy said. “He’s never changed his messaging. He never changed his tune.”

Well, there was one moment of inconsistency.

In the celebration after the Bears’ 24-15 upset of the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 13, Johnson ripped his shirt off and flexed.

The locker room erupted. Then Johnson shouted his now-signature “good-better-best” chant:

“Good, better, best. Never let it rest, till your good gets better, and your better gets best.”

Taylor said that even that moment of levity served a purpose.

“So there may be times where everybody’s kind of feeling themselves, thinking we had a good practice, we had a good half … and he just changes the atmosphere in the room and keeps everybody on edge,” Taylor told the Tribune. “There may be times that we’re all frustrated and disappointed with what happened, and he comes in with an encouraging word, and he just always seems to have that timing of what’s needed right then.

“Taking his shirt off postgame, that was the kind of thing that just pushed it over the top and gets everybody going.”

Long snapper Scott Daly said when coaches are putting on a show for the cameras or media, players “can kind of see through that.”

After getting to know Johnson over three seasons together in Detroit, Daly said he has seen Johnson “not change one bit.”

“Everyone has their own quirks and have their own things, but for the locker room … all we ask is for authenticity,” Daly said. “Ben’s been truly authentic.”

Johnson admits he can be demanding.

“I’m somewhat direct,” he said. “Just kind of my personality is (to) keep the main thing the main thing and be crystal clear and not a whole lot of gray.

“So, yeah, I don’t know if there’s more than that.”

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