Ben Johnson’s bold offseason warning is about to go into effect and some players on offense aren’t going to be happy about it
You gotta earn what you get.
The Chicago Bears defense was easily the biggest issue in Week 2 against the Detroit Lions, but this offense led by head coach Ben Johnson still seems to be off.
While quarterback Caleb Williams looked a lot better running things on Sunday it still didn’t look like the kind of offense Johnson wants to be running in Chicago.
Based on his postgame reaction on Monday, Johnson certainly seemed to be a little irritated with how the first two weeks have gone and will start looking to lay down the hammer.
Ben Johnson will start looking into offensive personnel changes after 0-2 start
“We’re going to have a lot more competition. Just what these guys look like when the ball is not in their hands, that’s a big deal for us. There were some plays yesterday that we weren’t quite as pleased with what that looked like on tape,” Johnson told reporters on Monday. “So, we’re going to find out this week at practice who wants to practice hard and who wants to be a little bit more involved with the game plan here going into Sunday.”
This is exactly the warning Johnson issued for this offense from Day 1 and reinforced by adding in some new weapons. Competition is going to determine how this offense looks. If you want to get on the field for this offense, you’re going to have to earn it.
Looking at the tape, there wasn’t a whole lot of egregious mistakes made in Week 2 compared to the first week of the season, but the coaches have a much closer eye for this kind of stuff.
Considering he’s talking about the skill players, it’s not a long list of players to look at. We’re basically talking about DJ Moore, Rome Odunze, Olamide Zaccheaus, D’Andre Swift, Cole Kmet, Colston Loveland, Luther Burden III, and Kyle Monangai. That’s basically all of the team’s skill that played.
Based on everything I saw from both games, Moore would be the main culprit I could see the coaches being disappointed with when it comes to his effort when he doesn’t have the ball. Yet, the bulk of Moore’s production issue in Week 2 had to do with simply not getting open. But again, we don’t know for sure that he’s the one Johnson is referring to with that message.
Another issue people from the outside seem to be frustrated with the lack of utilization of the rookie class and the tight end position as well, particularly with Loveland and Burden. Some of that has been by design, and so we should see an uptick moving forward based on what Johnson said on Monday.
“I kinda knew that first game that the tight end position wasn’t going to be featured as much. I was hopeful that this game we would bounce back a little bit more, both with Cole and Colston,” Johnson said. “Luther is slowing gaining the trust. We are trying to get him more packages as we’re going.”
We’ll see how the week of practice goes. If Johnson feels like certain players still aren’t operating at a certain level and he wants to get his rookies more involved, we could see some changes going into effect in Week 3. So, the snap count report will be something to watch for after the game.