Ben Johnson responds to criticism about not getting a rookie he trusts more involved in Week 1 and how that will change moving forward
He should have been more involved.
A lot went wrong in the Chicago Bears’ Week 1 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, which explains why the team blew a 17-6 lead in the fourth quarter and walked off Soldier Field with a 27-24 loss.
Since the game ended, it’s been refreshing to see how Ben Johnson has handled his first regular season game as a head coach.
Johnson took accountability for his own mistakes including his usage of timeouts, the decision-making on the failed challenge, and the final kickoff fiasco. At the same time, Johnson has also been holding his players accountable for the amount of penalties and the inconsistent play of the offense.
While speaking to reporters on Wednesday looking ahead to the Week 2 matchup against the Detroit Lions, Johnson responded to another piece of criticism that came out of the Week 1 opener.
Ben Johnson admits to underutilizing Kyle Monangai in Week 1
Going into the regular season, Johnson knew it would be a challenge to feed all of the offensive weapons and get everyone involved in the game plan. One player who was underutilized against the Vikings was seventh-round rookie running back Kyle Monangai, who seemingly impressed the staff throughout training camp and the preseason.
Instead, D’Andre Swift commanded the heavy majority of the carries out of the backfield and the run game stalled throughout much of the game, making it difficult to hold onto the lead and drain the clock. Someone like Monangai could have helped in that regard on Monday night.
“I need to call more runs. We probably were at, what, under 20 for called runs in the game. I need to call more so that we get him in the game a little bit more,” Johnson said. “That’s something [running backs coach Eric Bieniemy] and I have talked about, making sure he has more carries going forward.”
What’s odd about Monangai’s usage is that going into the Week 1 matchup, Monangai looked to be in line for a decent role in the offense after getting off the injury report and based on what his head coach said about him earlier in the week.
“Monangai has really hit his stride there over the course of the spring and in camp. I trust that guy at this point,” Johnson said about Monangai prior to Week 1. “That’s a big thing to say for a young player like that. He tends to do everything right.”
Naturally, it’s odd to see a coach say that about a player and then only put him on the field for a total of nine offensive snaps and not even letting him get a single carry in the game. And it’s not like Swift was dominating with his touches either.
The team’s lead back had 20 touches and averaged 3.25 yards per touch. Johnson noted he was “pleased” with how Swift played in the season opener outside of a few reads he missed but the stats tell a different story from Monday’s game.
Now, of course, it wouldn’t be fair to put all of the struggles solely on Swift. Johnson added on Tuesday that the offensive line struggled with identifying protection and making the correct blocks while going up against an incredibly tough run defense.
“We anticipate to be on the same page more than what we were. There were some times when we made the Mike point, we weren’t all on the same page,” Johnson explained.
Regardless, those aren’t excuses for not getting Monangai more involved in the game plan. It’s even more frustrating when watching the Minnesota Vikings find its spark offensively by getting another back in Jordan Mason more involved on the ground.
It seems like Johnson learned from that mistake and plans to hopefully give Monangai some more opportunities in Week 2 against the Detroit Lions.
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