Ben Johnson excited for ‘Bear Weather’ | Press Conference

Ben Johnson excited for ‘Bear Weather’ | Press Conference

Good, good, good, good. Be been outside. Uh, love it, man. It’s it’s bare weather, you know, it’s coming down. I know our guys are excited about it and we can’t wait. We can’t wait to get out there back home. I know I said it a couple days ago, but home field advantage. Can’t wait to see the fans out there. Um, you know, and and it’ll be one of those games I think we’re really looking forward to. So, I’ll go ahead and open it up from there. You have emphasized the run game around here like when you first got here. How much of of your explanation was when the weather’s bad, we’re going to need this? And and have you seen that come to life the last couple of weeks? Well, yeah. I I mean, it’s certainly a thought of your part of your thought process as you’re building the team. Um just using using your home field to your advantage as much as you can. And you know, we’re playing a lot of games outside. Uh once we hit that Minnesota game, second half of the season, that I think that was our last indoor game. And so, um, I think all along we’ve been of the mind and and I know I’ve said this before where we want the ability to to run it or throw it, whatever it takes to win. And so, if that’s 50 times on the ground, 50 times in the air, we need that ability to adjust and morph based on on what the game dictates. And so, um, you know, I I think I think we’re at a good spot right now to where that running game has come on strong. Um, it’s physical, man. I I give a lot of credit to our guys. Just talking to some of them earlier today about it and the way the the O line’s coming off the ball, the way the tight ends are blocking, uh you know, Kyle Manungai, I didn’t see it in the game, but you know, you see the the you know, pain of the helmet come off on the defender. I think that’s uh I think that that’s what we want. That was the vision. That was that was really what we wanted to bring to life. And I give the guys a lot of credit for for buying into what we’re we’re talking about. and uh really they they have all the ability in the world to have a physical run game. So, it is big. You mentioned on Monday that you’ve had conversations in recent weeks with Caleb about getting him in a rhythm early. He mentioned the other day that it’s good to see the first one go in. How do you guys sort of find your way to addressing that, trying to get him jump started without giving it too much thought and over over planning for Yeah. Um it’s one of those things we’re still working through. You know, I kind of I gauged a lot over the course of the week. what do the the passes look like when we’re out there full speed. Um that gives me a lot of confidence going to the game of man, he threw this one really well during the week and and let’s get it out open uh early so that we can just get a couple completions banked. I just last, you know, call it four or five games, I just haven’t felt like we’ve gotten into that where where we’re stacking up completions and um he’s conscious of it. I’m conscious of it and we we’ll continue to to try to find that that right balance of what those plays are. When you look at some of Caleb’s issues with timing, like recognition of an open guy and then the throwing accuracy, do you how much of that do you parse out as this is stuff he should be able to fix right now? And this is stuff that’s pretty expected and natural when you’re a young player learning a new offense. I I I think both of those things come up. Um, you know, there’s a lot of thinking going on for him right now. And you know, I was talking with the TV crew um yesterday about this just since the bye-week, we’ve kind of I don’t want to say take the taken the training wheels off, but to a degree, we’ve open opened up with all these shifts and motions. We have more movement than we we did in the first four games. And when that happens, um you know, he’s thinking a lot about his making sure he’s doing checking off all the boxes that he’s got to check off before the snap. And so because of that, the the post snap play suffers a little bit. Well, I also believe it’s it’s also a big reason why uh we’re having some success in the running game and and bringing some of that stuff to life as well. So, um it’s something that we’re going to continue to work through and I think each week you continue to see improvement to where the post snap play of our quarterback is getting better. And so, um yeah, there’s some of those that you you look at and he he said, “Man, I got to hit that.” And then uh there’s other ones that you know they’re going to be challenging throws that he makes and it’s like holy cow, you know, and so we’re gonna we’re going to get there. I’m not worried about that aspect of it and uh it’s just a matter of time. You’d have you’d have the option to narrow some of that down to simplify some of that for short-term gain maybe. Is it more of a priority to you to keep him on track to master this offense long term and then just hope each week he makes progress catching up? the the most important thing for us is is finding ways to win games. That’s that’s the key each and every week. So, we’re going to do whatever we need to do to win that game that week. Um he’s going to continue to to get more comfortable within this offense uh the longer he’s he’s a part of it. So, whether that’s a lot of shifts and motions, whether that’s completely static for the course of a game, it to me it doesn’t really matter. He’s going to he’s going to continue to to develop and he’s going to be in a good spot. And there have been some comparisons made between your scheme and what Mike Marts ran. I know that Kurt Warner talked about it recently. Did was he an influence on you as you were becoming, you know, an off working with offenses in the NFL like to build your philosophy? I uh I’ I’ve met him a couple times and, you know, I I’ve got a ton of respect for the for the guy. He’s he’s a guy I remember going to dinner with him when I was in Miami. Uh it was me and a couple other coaches and, you know, he just he could just talk for hours and you’re just a sponge soaking it all in. Um he he certainly believes in what he believes in and and uh you know here’s what I would I would say is it was when Bill Laser took over at Miami kind of had this vision of bringing Chip Kelly’s run game and combining it with Mike Mart’s digit system offense. And so um indirectly I’ I’ve been influenced by that digit system. Uh we did it for a couple years and so I I do have a little bit of familiarity in terms of how he would coach some of that stuff. we brought him in and he’s talked to the staff about it. Um, so yeah, there are elements of that, but I think I’ve talked about, you know, the the root of this offense is we’re more of a mut. There’s stuff all over the place, and I think that’s where a lot of these teams are are at this point anyways. I I don’t know that there’s a true West Coast offense out there anymore. There’s just there’s a lot of lot of plays out there, and um, everyone has the ability to morph every week. When you wanted to build an explosive offense here, I know we often think like skilled players, the guy the yards after catch, the guys who can really create those gains. How important was the offensive line though in giving you the foundation for running an explosive offense? Yeah. Well, I mean, it was important to to both me and Ryan uh making sure we got that position right. You know, certainly when you looked at at Caleb’s rookie season, the number of times he got sacked, um that that’s a hard way to live. That’s a hard way to be efficient on offense. And so we certainly want to be better in pass protection. Um quarterback, receiver, everybody has a hand in that. Coaching staff has a hand in that as well. And so um that was a starting point. And then I think as we alluded to before, we did want that ability to to have a running game, um when we need it. And so uh yeah, I think getting the offensive line right was a was a big part of our vision of how we wanted to build the football team this year and going forward. Ben, uh, obviously, uh, Caleb was drafted to be franchise quarterback to handle situations like right now with potential playoffs on the line. Uh, do you have to manage the psychological aspect of developing that part of him and what does that entail? I I think that’s the best thing about him is he’s kind of he’s built for the big stage, the big moments. Um, we’ve talked about that in the past as well. he he rises to that occasion and and the bigger the stage, I I think he he really comes to life as a as a player and uh and so yeah, you know, hopefully we can we can find a way to make it into the dance and I think uh I think he’ll he’ll be playing his best football when we when we earn that right. And you look at it do you look at it like you have to get DJ going to get as far as you guys could possibly go or is it more you have a lot of weapons? Well, our approach really hasn’t changed week in and week out just in terms of um the guys that we have up and we’re counting on to be to be playing. We’re going to have roles and we’re going to have plays for all of them. Um can we dictate necessarily where the ball’s going to go? Not at all. Not all the time. Um I said it last week. I I just I wasn’t anticipating him to come out of that game with only one catch. I I thought we we had him out there as the primary for a number of instances and and we just we couldn’t find a way to get him the ball, whether that’s coverage dictated or or other things that go on within a play. And so, um, do I want to get DJ Moore going? Absolutely. Do I want to get all these guys the ball? Absolutely. They’ve all earned that that right. And, um, I think it makes us a better, more well-rounded offense when we have all these, uh, all these guys contributing at that level. Are you preparing with the the belief that Rome and Tyreek will be available to you on Sunday? Man, you guys are good on Fridays, aren’t you? You phrase the word, the phrase the questions a little bit different. Um, yeah. So, we got two days of practice here this week and we’ll see. You know, yesterday was a good step in the right direction. We’ll see. We’ll see what today looks like. Couple more. When you took the job, you said that Caleb was part of the attraction of coming here that working with that quarterback. I and you’ve spoken very positively about him throughout the season. What in your I think 11 months now here has strengthened your long-term view of what he can become? Well, yeah, I think it’s the coachability aspect of it. Um he he’s doing a really good job right now of being critical of himself. Uh we we see it the same way. You know, we’ll watch tape together. Man, I got to I got to be better there. Even the walkthrough. I mean, hell, we just had a walkth through and he’s he’s like he’s a little pissed off walking off. He’s like, “Man, I I’m I had two in there that I could have gotten a little bit cleaner in a walkthrough set.” Well, we just installed the play. So, that I mean, that’s natural. And so, um, when he’s critical of himself and he’s taken the coaching, I I know good things are coming down the horizon. And so, he he’s going to continue to get better. When you’re game planning, what’s the process like of like disguising your intentions for if something looks like it’s going to be a run play and you get an idea? I think we can throw out of this like how do you how do you go about that? Like what does that process look like? Um yeah, I mean there’s there’s always uh different different layers to that question right there on on our game planning process, but um a lot of it starts with what what’s the defensive perspective? Um what are they practicing? What is it going to look like to them? And how can we potentially have them have bad eyes and and put them in in tough spots? And so not all of it always works out the way you envisioned it, but um I do think our our coaching staff does a really good job of trying to, you know, put a conflict of assignment on a lot of these these defenders and um try to expose them that way. Yeah. Thank you. I think.

Head coach Ben Johnson addresses the media Friday at Halas Hall.

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