Ben Johnson has been catching heat and hell all week. Where some people have pivotal weeks, Johnson had his pivot week. It felt like all at once, the collective turned on him because, well, if we’re being transparent, everything he has said and done up to this point seemed to have turned on him, too.
This week, Johnson became the victim of his own self-imposed hate economy.
The jump ship of half a city. The turning of coats, jackets, vests and hoodies. Caps turned to the back, “C’s” no longer out front. (Sorry, that was an insider, below-the-belt Cubs reference that just happened to apply to the Bears this week.) Bears logos looking the other way.
The adjectives flew. Ben been called every name and emphatic and demonstrative pronoun under God’s ever-evolving vocabulary. Beyond just in the English and Spanish language categories. Too often when it comes to the Bears and Johnson, we can be blind, bias or incompetent. Not this week.
It starts here: “You’ve got 31 other teams coming to training camp, saying, ‘Our goal is to win the Super Bowl.’ I want more than that.” I’ll end it there. The rest, this week, used as his epitaph. Because, all things fair, what Johnson went through this week in the aftermath of the ‘‘dabacle,’’ he brought on himself. Those chosen words above to open the season. The “OK, you mighta gone too far” bro-culture behavior that people for some reason seem to love, that has been the Bears’ breath of new life, this week became his self-inflicted albatross.
There’s very little objectivity in public judgment.
Is there a difference in placing blame, directing target and who’s at fault when a situation goes further than awry? When finger-pointing becomes justified; when the single finger (depending on the finger) in whatever direction it’s pointed — could be forward, could be upward — has more power than the direction of the other four?
His “act” went under investigation — 2.7 million local PIs. He chose to call out Green Bay last year. He chose to make the GOAT offense comment. He chose to present the smugness as character. He chose Tyson Bagent over Case Keenum momentum. He chose to give Roschon Johnson more carries than D’Andre Swift in the second half. He chose to be way too cute and outsmart himself in his play-calling.
(He didn’t choose to get outcoached by Brian Flores in the unmentioned loss to Minnesota, but that’s a different story.)
Situational awareness. “I want to have the highest-scoring offense ever. . . . I know how many points per game they [the 2013 Broncos] scored, and I want to surpass them. I want shutouts. I want blowouts.”
I. I. I. I. All before the fall. This week, the “I’s” didn’t have it; they had him — in a choke hold because they didn’t escape his soul the way they did in the preseason. This week, “we” was the intentional personal pronoun of choice. As accountability became shared instead of owned.
He mostly didn’t look the same as when he stepped to the podium last year to introduce himself to the congregation he was going to lead. His eyes this week darting hella more, far less direct when answering questions. Voice inflection and tone, reduced. Smile and petty laughter, gone. The arrogance and belief in self still there, but hidden behind a week in reality.
His team has played rhythmless, inconsistent and uninspired football this season. Good, Better, Best? Unacceptable, Unpredictable, Mid. While there are plenty of legitimate excuses to pass around the entire team as to why that has been their 2026 existence, a reason has yet to surface beyond those excuses as to why they appear to be so less than. More of a work in progress stuck in neutral on what their version of a team under the spell of Johnson is supposed to be.
This is all on him. The whole “I want more than that” unnecessary aspiration hasn’t come back to haunt and troll Johnson as much as it set an unforgiving (unforgivable?) precedent and outlier that has become public bulletin-board material by which he is now — and going to continue to be — judged.
Be careful, man. Mess around here, and you can way sooner than you want to believe become a has-Ben. Because at our best, Chicago, when it comes to sports fans and fandom, is Philadelphia with less hate and more knowledge. Don’t be a product of your time, be the one ahead of it. Question your inner self —- before this week — and don’t treat the outside noise as noise.
Take this last week as lesson and warning.
There’s the “that,” then there’s the “how.” Most times they are pitted against one another for prosperity purposes. “That” you lost loses to “how” you lost this round. Add arrogance and preseason bravado, add news-conference shots to an enemy organization, add a–hole behavior as the leader of men in the aftermath of victories against said enemy, add the unaccountability of using “we” instead of ever using “I” when bounden, add to all of this the “who” in who it was you just had your worst professional head-coaching moment against.
Solve that equation. Know forever moving forward that the math won’t lie.