Chicago Bears Pin Playoff Hopes on New Coach Ben Johnson

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00:00Chicago. The Bears hiring Ben Johnson. DRS, both you and myself, called it the best or at least

00:06most attractive coaching hire in this cycle. Last year, the Bears were not expected to be a bad team

00:12despite having a rookie quarterback in Kayla Williams. So much talent on the roster, a

00:17preseason win total of eight and a half, and the over had the substantial juice. So a 5-12 campaign

00:24was an unmitigated disaster that led to the dismissal of Matt Iberflus midway through the

00:29season, but ended on a high note with a rivalry victory in Lambeau against the Green Bay Packers.

00:3540-1 price for the Bears to win Super Bowl 60. I would say rather optimistic. They draft 10th

00:42in the opening round, hoping to bolster the organization around now second-year quarterback

00:47and Kayla Williams. Eight total picks in the NFL draft, and once again for the Bears, for the third

00:52consecutive offseason, a good amount of cap space, $63 million. We'll talk about Ben Johnson in just

01:00a moment, but again, Donnie, the offseason expectation, inserting Kayla Williams as the

01:05rookie signal caller a year ago, was a winning season and maybe playoff contention. Now you add

01:11Ben Johnson and keep most of the roster in place. You expect Kayla Williams to improve season over

01:17season, especially under the bright offensive mind of Ben Johnson. Big question number one for

01:23the Bears. What are realistic expectations for next season? Oh, it's playoffs. It really is. Like, even

01:30coming into this season, we were spoiled, as I like to say, by, you know, CJ down there in Houston

01:34having a very, very good rookie year, and you expected that to just say, you know what? Rookie

01:39quarterbacks with high, let's just say, accolades coming out of college, they should be able to be

01:43successful right away, and it wasn't Kayla Williams' fault. Just didn't have the right

01:47offensive coordinator slash offensive system to be in, because I don't think anybody's like, hey, man,

01:51Kayla's going to get drafted to the Bears. He's probably going to be a bust at that point, and he

01:54wasn't a bust last year. They had a lot of weapons. They had a decent offensive structure, but just not

01:59the right plays in the play, call them the confidence to operate out of the pocket. So now

02:03when you get Ben Johnson to come over, you already have a quarterback with a lot of snaps under his

02:06belt. He's been in the NFL, and now you have an entire offseason. Say, look, we're not going to

02:10surprise you of being your first start, second start, third start. You've been around the block

02:15already. I'm going to put you in the right position every time, and also, Ben, a lot of similarities to

02:19Detroit. Like Detroit has a great offensive line. Chicago's got a solid offensive line. Detroit's got

02:24a great tight end. They have a decent tight end in Cole Komet. You have great wide receivers that

02:29were able to perform in Detroit. You got a really solid set of wide receivers here in Chicago. Do

02:34you have the same running game that you have, you know, with Sonic and Knuckles? No, you don't, but

02:38Swift is a pretty good start at that point. It's not as if he's coming into a situation like, boy,

02:42this is the bottom of the barrel. We got to build this up. I expect Ben Johnson and that offense

02:46to hit the ground running from day number one, which means a successful season to me

02:51is making the playoffs. A non-successful season is not making the playoffs. It's that simple now.