When a new football coach takes over a crippling program, one of the toughest things is to rebuild culture. Especially when you’re talking about a team like the Chicago Bears. They needed a massive shift from a losing mentality to a respectable program. Enter Ben Johnson, who’s “Good, better, best” mantra has set a new standard for NFL teams.
Wins and losses are important, but those can’t happen without a positive culture and that’s why the Bears have turned things around from a seemingly endless era of losing. Also why the New England Patriots are atop the AFC with the Indianapolis Colts and why the Washington Commanders reached the NFC championship game a year after having the No. 2 pick.
Why Chicago’s rapid turnaround has everything to do with culture
This isn’t a talent issue in Chicago — and most other struggling NFL teams — it’s a culture issue. If you look at the Bears, just last year, they started 4-2 before losing the next 10 games. Between lack of discipline and a dejected roster as a whole, it shouldn’t puzzle you why the Bears struggled. Even if you look at the last few years, under Matt Nagy and Matt Eberflus, this season is vastly different from previous teams.
The one thing you can point to is how Johnson has captured that locker room in a way none of his predecessors could. The Bears' culture problem has hindered their success for years. They haven’t had a season with more than 10 wins since 2018 — also the last time they were above .500. In half a season, Johnson has reignited this team.
This is a testament to how important culture is. Before this season, there was no accountability within the Bears organization. There have been bad hires fueling an endless cycle of losing. Johnson has corrected course and now the Bears have turned the corner. He’s a brilliant offensive mind, but how he’s changed the mentality of this team is more than how he's made this team fun to watch.
Even something as simple as a war chant that Johnson adopted while playing high school football, per a story in The Athletic, can be enough to get his team to believe in him. This is what failing teams can learn. Johnson isn’t the only coach to win over his team in the locker room, but it’s the most drastic turnaround we've seen in a while. Maybe it kickstarts a new trend in the NFL.
What failing organizations can learn from Ben Johnson’s turnaround of the Chicago Bears
The Cleveland Browns thought they had the answer with Kevin Stefanski, that’s not the case; the New York Jets have tried to change everything except the culture and the Jacksonville Jaguars are still recovering from the damage Urban Meyer caused. The common denominator is that these teams either have or have had a major culture problem.
The Browns seem forever cursed. Even when they have a championship-level defense, they can’t put it together on offense. Maybe this is more of a talent issue than not, but it's not like this team has strong discipline behind them either.
The Jets, well, they're the poster child for how a bad culture can fracture an organization. Woody Johnson, the owner of the Jets, is the face of a miserable culture within a franchise. The Jets don’t have a talent problem and Aaron Glenn isn’t the problem either as he is tasked with turning things around. Glenn should be afforded time to clean up the mess caused by decades of poor coaching hires.
The reason why teams like the Commanders and Patriots have been able to quickly improve is because they brought in coaches that were less focused on trying to produce wins and focused on putting life into the roster and team. It helps that the owners are focused less on results early on and more on improving the mentality.
Results are important, don’t get me wrong. The NFL is a results-driven business that if you don’t win enough, you won’t have a job. But you can’t start winning until you get your locker room to believe in you. It’s why some teams turn around quicker than others. It’s why the Bears seem to have kicked the losing ways to the curb and finally look like a serious organization.