LAKE FOREST, Ill. (WGN) — In the eyes of Jaylon Johnson, there’s still no sign of change at Halas Hall.
As he and other veterans walk back into the building this week, the excitement surrounding the Chicago Bears’ fresh start with new head coach Ben Johnson is lost on him until he sees the positive change that has eluded them since he joined the franchise.
“I’ve been through it too many times, man. I’m going to get excited when we win in November and December and we change some things and get to the playoffs,” Johnson said. “That’s when I’ll be excited.”
Johnson is heading into his sixth NFL season and third go-around riding Chicago’s head coaching carousel.
The first operator of his Bears carnival ride was Matt Nagy. The former Kansas City Chiefs play caller guided Chicago to an 8-8 record and a wild card round loss to the New Orleans Saints during Johnson’s rookie year in 2020, but got the ax a season later when the Bears fell to 6-11.
Next came Matt Eberflus, who went 14-32 before becoming Chicago’s first-ever head coach to be fired midseason in 2024.
Interim head coach Thomas Brown coached the team to a 1-4 record in their final five games of last year. He’s now the passing game coordinator and tight ends coach for the New England Patriots.
It’s twists and turns like those that have tempered expectations from Johnson as a new regime comes in.
His third full-time carnival ride operator is now Ben Johnson, who aims to take the team from looking like a poorly maintained sideshow at the Lake County Fair, to a high flying attraction fit to stand alongside the Bears’ most vaunted teams in franchise history.
“The talk, the hype and all that—hype don’t win you games. I’ve been here a minute. I’ve been through the hype and we don’t win games,” Johnson said. “For me, if it’s not about winning, I don’t really care about it.”
That’s not to say Ben Johnson didn’t leave a lasting impression on one of the NFL’s top corners.
On top of posting a 27-7 record and coming a handful of plays away from a Super Bowl appearance two seasons ago, Johnson said the former Detroit Lions offensive coordinator is skilled at manipulating the eyes of the defense.
“The biggest thing is eyes, just having good eye discipline, which is hard to do when you’re getting smacked in the face almost every play,” Johnson said of playing against the Lions last year. “Then their receivers block hard so, I’m trying to anticipate certain blocking and then they run play-action pass off of it.
“That was probably the biggest thing, just pairing the run game with the pass game and challenging the defense’s eyes.
Teammate Jaquan Brisker alluded to how Ben Johnson’s acumen should help sharpen the defense and lead to winning more games Sunday in an interview with Kaitlin Sharkey.
While Johnson may remain a bit more skeptical than his teammates until he sees tangible results, it’s that pursuit of winning and a sense of leadership that still drove him to arrive at Halas Hall on the first day of the Bears’ offseason workout program—a period that’s completely voluntary for players.
“I think this is big for me to just come in and be able to shake guys’ hands, see them in person,” Johnson said. “I just talked to them on the phone, but to come in and really be with the guys, to show the guys I’m here … I think that was important for me to do [on] day 1.”
Johnson said this point of the offseason is for the team to figure each other out. For many of the Bears players and coaches, this is the first time they have met at all, or seen each other since the end of last season. It’s not a time when change can be felt. In his eyes, the first opportunity for that will be in training camp.
“That’s when the real ball will show up,” Johnson said. “And really throughout the season, we’ll see. Things can start off rocking again and we figure it out. Things can change throughout the back half or the middle of the season, or we start off hot and we sh*t the bed. It kind of just depends.
“For me, at the end of the day, it’s about winning. If we go out there and win on Sunday, I feel good about everybody.”
When it comes to winning, Johnson wants to win a certain type of way. He doesn’t just want to win games, he wants to do so emphatically.
“Would you rather win games by seven points or 70?” Johnson said. “To me, you get in the fight, you don’t want to barely win the fight. You want to whoop the guy in front of you. That’s what the mentality is. For us, it’s not just about winning or barely getting by, but dominating. I think, for us, that’s the mentality we need to have.
“It’s not just about trying to get better, take the next step and win more games than we won last year. It’s about changing your mentality and how you go about attacking. As a unit, if we can go in with that confidence, that mentality that we’re going to blow the team out in front of us and they can’t mess with us, then I feel like a lot of times, that willpower will get you there.”
“There” is going to take technique and consistency, rep after rep, according to Johnson. That includes being in shape while maintaining a certain level of mental and physical strength.
But it will also take a new level of accountability. One where coaches and players take action in the moment, instead of just talking about what needs to be done.
“You see it, you call it out. I think that’s the biggest thing for me. I feel like at this level, accountability isn’t just talking, but about action to change certain things,” Johnson said. If I can use myself as an example, if I’m not, let’s say maybe I’m not covering too good. It’s not just, ‘Oh Jaylon, just cover better.’ There’s a certain action that needs to be taken from somebody else to hold me accountable for that.
“What that looks like is different for every player, every situation. But I think if you see something, say something, and then if it’s not getting fixed, then you have to do something. To me, that’s what accountability is.”