NFLNFLFor the second year in a row, Chicago is coming away with a big offseason prize. Last year it was Caleb Williams; this year it’s reportedly the top name in the coaching carousel. Now, Johnson will be tasked with revitalizing a former no. 1 pick—something he has a history of doing.
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By Steven RuizJan. 21, 3:39 am UTC • 5 min
For a second consecutive year, the Chicago Bears will come away with the biggest prize of the offseason. Last spring it was quarterback Caleb Williams, the top prospect in the 2024 draft class, widely considered a generational talent. This year, Chicago is reportedly landing the hottest coaching candidate of the 2025 hiring cycle in Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson. Now, Johnson will be tasked with turning Williams into the top-tier quarterback that was promised. And it won’t be the first time he’s coached up a former no. 1 pick.
In Detroit, Johnson helped reclaim quarterback Jared Goff’s career, building up Goff’s confidence after Sean McVay traded him away after a few down seasons in Los Angeles. Goff had some previous success on his résumé before linking up with Johnson, but he was coming off a rough season—much like Williams is after a difficult rookie campaign in Chicago.
Johnson took that diminished version of Goff and, within two seasons, turned him into a fringe MVP candidate thanks to a scheme that’s been the envy of the entire NFL. But the system Johnson built in Detroit won’t help him find success in Chicago. Given the stylistic differences between Goff and Williams—both have talented arms, but Goff relies on timing and anticipation to work around other physical limitations while Williams is still learning to play on time—and the talent gap between the Lions’ and Bears’ offensive lines, Johnson will likely fail if he doesn’t make significant changes to his playbook. We could speculate about how the new Bears offense will look based on his play calling tendencies in Detroit, but if Johnson is truly the coaching star Chicago believes it’s hiring, that will tell us very little about the offense he’ll build for Williams.
What we do know is that Johnson works quickly. It didn’t take long for the first-time play caller to find a formula that worked for Goff in Detroit, and he turned the passer’s fortunes around within his first season as offensive coordinator.
And while Johnson didn’t build exactly the same offense that Goff ran in L.A. under McVay, the foundation was similar, with a dominant offensive line and running game that helped simplify things in the passing game. Even if the plays were different, Goff made the same throws—usually deep in-breakers over the middle of the field—that he had to in the Rams offense. Johnson didn’t crib McVay’s playbook, but he did re-create the environment that Goff had during his two positive seasons in Los Angeles, like a football version of Nathan Fielder in The Rehearsal.
Johnson also found new elements, like Amon-Ra St. Brown option routes, for Goff to lean on when defenses sold out to eliminate options in the middle of the field. He kept the running game fresh with new wrinkles that featured his talented offensive line, led by Penei Sewell. He built the league’s most explosive screen game—though having a back like Jahmyr Gibbs helped with that. And then there were the creative designs that defied the standard play types, like the fake fumble play the Lions used in December to burn Johnson’s new team.
Johnson made key tweaks and improvements to the Lions offense over his three years in charge, but the goal remained constant: to keep Goff in conditions that brought out his best. Detroit hasn’t been running the Ben Johnson offense these past few seasons. It’s been running the Jared Goff offense.
“I’ve been around a handful of great coaches who became head coaches in the league, and he reminded me of them,” Goff said of Johnson in 2023. Goff has also lauded his now-former offensive coordinator for seeking the quarterback’s input when designing the offense. “Whether he takes it or he doesn’t, he allows me to say it and uses some of it,” Goff said last year. “It’s fun for me, it really is. It allows me to really be a part of the plan in some ways.”
That’s how many of the perennially successful offenses operate in this league. The Chiefs aren’t running the Andy Reid offense. It’s the Patrick Mahomes offense. Buffalo operates the Josh Allen offense; Baltimore, the Lamar Jackson offense; and Cincinnati, the Joe Burrow offense. Even the successful offenses that aren’t led by elite quarterbacks, like Detroit’s, are tailored to fit the skill sets of their signal callers. Mike McDaniel reconfigured Kyle Shanahan’s offense in Miami to highlight Tua Tagovailoa’s quick release, and the Eagles offense hasn’t changed much with Jalen Hurts under center even though Philly has cycled through offensive coordinators.
Johnson has a diverse schematic background. He’s worked on staff with the OGs of the West Coast offense and has ties to the Don Coryell coaching tree through Adam Gase. He isn’t beholden to any one system, which could be a positive for the Bears because Johnson’s big challenge in Chicago won’t be re-creating the Lions offense; it will be re-creating the process that allowed him to build the perfect offense for Goff. Williams isn’t a good fit for the scheme Johnson ran in Detroit, which was constructed for a stationary pocket passer who has no interest in extending plays or abandoning the structure of a play. During his rookie season, Williams had perhaps too much interest in extending plays—he had the NFL’s sixth-highest average time to throw this season, per TruMedia, which contributed to his league-leading sack total (68)—and he wasn’t nearly as confident as Goff has been when targeting the middle of the field.
As a result, Johnson’s passing game may have to change. But the first task in turning this offense around will be about stripping Williams of the things he does poorly and leaning into the things he does well—as Johnson did with Goff. Given how poorly Williams’s first season went, it will be easy to find the things he doesn’t do so well. The rookie looked lost when he was asked to execute dropback passing concepts from the pocket, typically the most difficult plays for young quarterbacks who aren’t yet comfortable reading pro defenses.
The Bears put a lot on the rookie’s plate from the jump. They asked him to operate a dropback scheme with few easy buttons built in and orchestrate the offense before the snap as if he were a five-year veteran. Chicago is hiring Johnson to build a dynamic attack that highlights its young, dynamic quarterback, but the key to Johnson’s success in his first head coaching job could just be to simplify things and let the 23-year-old do what he does best, such as ripping intermediate throws to the perimeter and executing quick throws on run-pass options.
Williams hasn’t been in the NFL nearly long enough for us to know what his ideal offense looks like. So Johnson’s first tasks will be working with Williams, unlocking his skill set, and designing from there. And he seems to understand the assignment. “That’s where I think the secret sauce is—they have to believe in it,” Johnson said of building an offense that works for its quarterback in 2023. “If they don’t believe in it, it doesn’t work. But if they believe, it typically does work.”
Steven Ruiz has been an NFL analyst and QB ranker at The Ringer since 2021. He’s a D.C. native who roots for all the local teams except for the Commanders. As a child, he knew enough ball to not pick the team owned by Dan Snyder—but not enough to avoid choosing the Panthers.
