The Detroit Lions blowing out the Chicago Bears and their rookie head coach in Week 2 is not the kind of result would normally be a big story, but Sunday's matchup was more than just an NFC North clash, and Ben Johnson is more than just a first-time head coach experiencing routine early-season struggles.
Johnson's move from his station as the Lions' celebrated offensive coordinator to the big-boy chair in Chicago was a source of intrigue heading into this NFL season. In his three years at Detroit, Johnson helped turn the Lions' offense into one of the league's best units of the decade, filling the playbook with all sorts of innovative concepts and hilarious trick plays. Whenever a coordinator like that leaves a team like that—the Lions were a top-five offense every season Johnson was there—a question naturally arises: Who was actually cooking up all that success? Was it Johnson, or Dan Campbell and his players?
A nasty Week 1 performance from Detroit against the Packers gave an early indication that perhaps it had been Johnson carrying Campbell and Jared Goff all along. Week 2 told a very different story: The Lions beat the Bears, 52-21, and did so with the intent of rubbing Johnson's nose in it. After intercepting Caleb Williams, the Lions defense celebrated by recreating the Stumblebum trick play that Johnson made famous in Detroit. Up 45-21 late in the fourth quarter, Campbell went for it on fourth-and-goal instead of kicking a field goal, putting his team over the 50-point mark and furthering Johnson's humiliation. The fans in the stadium capped things off with a "Fuck Ben Johnson!" chant.
"We knew coming into this game that this is personal," said Lions defensive back Brian Branch after the game. "Really, all these games personal, but this one we felt like we'd been betrayed from the staff to players. And we love Ben, we still love Ben. He's a great coach. He's a great mastermind but, yeah, it was time to get after him." When asked in the locker room after the game how he felt about the idea that this year's offense isn't as good without Johnson, Lions receiver Jameson Williams just said, "You see the 50 points up there."
This might be enough to make you feel bad for Johnson, but the current situation he's in—0-2, looking miserable on the sideline, already snapping at annoying questions from reporters—is of his own making. Johnson is not just some upstart who stumbled into the first available head coaching gig that came his way. He was the hottest candidate on the market in each of the last two offseasons, and could have handpicked any vacancy he wanted to fill. He was so deliberate about the direction of his next step that he pulled out of consideration for the Washington Commanders job in 2024 even as their braintrust was on a plane headed to make his hiring official. That Johnson eventually chose the Bears sent a clear signal: This is the job he wanted above all others, one that would allow him to prove himself against his old team and division rivals and establish himself as a top head coach in the league.
Johnson didn't do much to tamp down expectations after being hired, either. He spent a good portion of his introductory press conference raving about how stacked the Bears' roster is, how much he trusts GM Ryan Poles, and how excited he was to coach Williams. He took a weird dig at Packers head coach Matt LaFleur, which seemed like some friendly ribbing before it was revealed that Johnson and LaFleur don't know each other at all. The Athletic got in on the hype cycle by comparing Johnson to Anton Chigurh, in a profile in which Johnson admitted that one of his goals as a coach is to embarrass the other the team.
It's obviously too early to write Johnson off after an 0-2 start—it wasn't so long ago that Dan Campbell went 3-13 in his first season as the Lions' head coach. The difference is that nobody expected Campbell to be anything more than an emotional oaf who gave good soundbites, whereas Johnson has been marked for years as the next great NFL head coach just waiting to call his shot. He's got plenty of time to figure things out, but if losses like Sunday's keep piling up, be might be longing for Jayden Daniels or the relative anonymity of the Raiders job sooner rather than later.
