2 reasons Ben Johnson should be the next Bears head coach, 1 reason to be skeptical

Neil Sedaka once sang that breaking up is hard to do, but for Chicago Bears fans, they couldn't drive former head coach Matt Eberflus to O'Hare Airport fast enough.

Many fans wanted Eberflus gone after he directed the Bears to a 7-10 record last year, but a strong finish helped him keep his job with the hope that this season would at least bring a playoff berth to Chicago.

Intead, the Bears have cratered out after a 4-2 start. The team has lost six straight games, and Eberflus is directly to blame for most of them. Time and again the Bears have been close in the fourth quarter against good teams, only to let the game slip away through their fingers thanks to Eberflus' inconceivably consistent mismanagement at the end of games.

It's sad to say, but the playoffs are not happening for the Bears, at least not this year. Thomas Brown just took over as offensive coordinator a few weeks ago following the scapegoating of Shane Waldron (who, to be fair, was actually terrible), and he's now been elevated to interim head coach in the wake of Eberflus' firing. Even if Brown engineers an impossible turnaround and directs the Bears to a 5-0 finish against a nasty closing schedule, 9-8 will almost certainly not be enough to reach the postseason.

Bears general manager Ryan Poles is already hard at work putting together a list of candidates to replace Eberflus permanently, and while Brown has a golden opportunity to show what he can do these last five weeks, there's one name that Bears fans want above all others: Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson.

NFL insider Albert Breer reported over a month ago that Johnson would have been interested in the Bears job if it had opened up last offseason, which will only make Bears fans angrier that they remained loyal to Eberflus, who finished his Bears career with a 14-32 record.

Johnson is the hottest coordinator in the league, and would seem to have his pick of available jobs if he chose to leave Detroit. He was in the running for the Commanders head coaching job this past offseason, but took his name out of the running to remain in Detroit another year.

The way Caleb Williams has played recently should make Bears fans feel good that if Johnson is offered the job, he would take it. The number one pick has looked more and more comfortable with each passing week that Waldron is gone, and Johnson, who has said that he would like to call the offensive plays if he took a head coaching job, could jump at the chance to get in on the ground floor of a young player that has all the makings of being a top franchise quarterback.

It will take a while for the Bears to find their new coach, as there are still five more weeks to go in the regular season and over two months until the Super Bowl. If Johnson really is at the top of the list, let's look at two reasons why he should be, and one reason why the Bears should exercise caution before offering him the job.

Ben Johnson should be the next Bears head coach because he is a phenomenal playcaller

Before this season, most Bears fans wouldn't know an innovative offense if it slapped them in the face on a cold Chicago winter morning. The Bears have been offensive dinosaurs for decades, traditionally relying on defense and special teams to keep them in games while the offense just tries not to mess it up.

With Caleb Williams in town, we've begun to see how exciting the offensive side of the ball can be, and though this slogan hasn't been as successful as your author would have hoped this year, we are not going back.

The Bears have a lot of talent on the defensive side of the ball, but that's no reason to be conservative on offense, and Ben Johnson's current team is proof. Even though they lost Defensive Player of the Year candidate Aidan Hutchinson to a broken leg in Week 6, the Lions defense has been suffocating teams, and up until the Bears woke up in the second half on Thanksgiving, they hadn't given up a touchdown in over 12 quarters.

That didn't stop the offense from firing on all cylinders, as the Lions put up 111 points in that stretch, compared to just six for their opponents. What's been so notable about Detroit's offensive performance is just how balanced they are. The Lions rank fifth in the league in passing yards per game and fourth in rushing. Only the Ravens, who rank third and second, respectively, can compare, and even they have needed one more game to score the same amount of points as the Lions.

Johnson has a lot of talent at his disposal, but he seems perfectly tuned in on how to use it. Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery have not only co-existed as part of a two-headed backfield, they've thrived, with each rushing for double-digit touchdowns already while adopting the nickname of Sonic & Knuckles.

Sam LaPorta took the league by storm as a rookie tight end last year, and he reminded a national TV audience why on Thanksgiving, as he scored two touchdowns against the Bears. Fantasy owners have been disappointed by LaPorta this season, but it's only because Johnson has spread the wealth around so evenly to Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams and others that opposing defenses don't know who to focus on.

Johnson was named the top playcalling offensive coordinator this past offseason by Pro Football Network, and he's only gotten better this year. Whether it's innovating in the running game, dialing up play-action at precisely the right moment, or designing trick plays, Johnson has been a mastermind.

Johnson's playcalling has been so good that even when his plays don't work, as was the case with a trick play on Thanksgiving in which offensive lineman Penei Sewell was supposed to throw the ball but ended up being pushed out of bounds for a loss, fans still cheer anyway. Compare that to the since-fired Waldron, who nearly needed police protection after his goal-line handoff to lineman Doug Kramer against the Commanders was fumbled.

Ben Johnson should be the next Bears head coach because he's worked wonders with Jared Goff

The top priority for any potential Bears head coach needs to be the continued development of Caleb Williams. The rookie has had enough time to show that he is indeed the one that will break Chicago's long-running quarterback curse. Maximizing Williams' prodigious talent is the surest way to make the Bears Super Bowl contenders for the next decade.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what the Chiefs, Bills, Ravens and Eagles (four of the top Super Bowl favorites) all have in common: outstanding quarterback play. Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson and Jalen Hurts are four of the top quarterbacks in the league (Joe Burrow also belongs in that group, but the Bengals defense has been so bad that even his exceptional play hasn't been enough to save them this year), and they're able to get the job done with their arm and their legs.

Williams has that same ability, but which potential head coach can help him reach his ceiling? That's what Ryan Poles needs to figure out, and that's why Johnson should be the first person he calls.

Most football fans remember Jared Goff's early career mostly for how ineffective he was against Bill Belichick and the Patriots in the 2019 Super Bowl. That isn't totally fair, because Goff put up big numbers during his time in L.A., but he definitely did drop off after that Super Bowl loss, as his touchdowns went down and his interceptions went up.

Goff can be forgiven if he was salty after the Rams won the Super Bowl immediately after trading him away for Matthew Stafford, but rather than let that move define his career, he's become one of the most ruthlessly efficient quarterbacks in the game. He deserves a ton of credit for blossoming in the Motor City, but so too does Johnson for helping him become the best version of himself.

Goff's numbers since Johnson became the offensive coordinator are elite. He's thrown for 81 touchdowns in 46 games, while only throwing 28 interceptions. He's on pace for the fifth-best single-season completion percentage in NFL history.

Like Goff, Williams was the top pick in the draft, but unlike the statuesque Lions quarterback, Williams has wheels, too. Could you imagine what Johnson could do with someone like that?

Bears fans should be skeptical because the Lions offense is loaded

If there's one reason to be skeptical of how Johnson would fare as a head coach, it's that the Lions have talent at every offensive position. One could argue that anybody could succeed with Goff, St. Brown, Gibbs, Montgomery, LaPorta and the best offensive line in the league.

The Bears have a stable of offensive talent themselves, but any Bears fan could tell you the frustrations that the O-line has caused this year. Williams has been sacked a league-high 49 times, and though some of those have certainly been his own fault for holding the ball too long, most of the blame falls to the big men up front for not protecting him.

Poles will undoubtedly address the line this offseason through the draft and/or free agency, but it's unrealistic to expect the Bears to field a line as dominant as Detroit's next year. Can Johnson succeed when he doesn't have such an edge in the trenches? It's a fair question to ask.

Bears fans still have PTSD from when Matt Nagy was the coach. Like Johnson, Nagy was one of the hottest coordinators in the league when he was with the Chiefs, but there's a key difference between the two. Johnson is running his own offense in Detroit, while Nagy was running Andy Reid's in Kansas City. That autonomy matters, and it's why guys like Eric Bienemy, who also worked under Reid, have had trouble getting head coaching jobs. If you work under a master, the master gets the credit. That's just the way it works.

Johnson definitely benefits from having so much talent at his disposal, but he still deserves recognition for using it so effectively. Former NBA coach Phil Jackson used to face similar criticisms, as many fans thought that anyone could win with Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. It's telling though that neither of those guys won a title without the Zen Master as their head coach. Talent is one thing, knowing how to maximize it is another.

Bears fans have reason to believe that Williams is the kind of special talent that could also bring multiple titles to the Windy City. If Poles believes that Johnson is the guy that can get the most out of his young quarterback, then he needs to do whatever it takes to make it happen.