PHOENIX — Few Chicago sports figures have been as popular as Ben Johnson, perhaps the Bears’ most celebrated coach since Mike Ditka, and their most successful season in more than a decade vaulted his fame to a new height.
Johnson was well-known in NFL circles and among Lions fans during his run as their offensive coordinator before taking the job with the Bears, but not like this. Nothing beats the energy of a thrilling Bears season, and Johnson fueled it with fiery postgame speeches that peaked with him ripping off his shirt after a victory against the Eagles to trigger a hot-dog giveaway at The Wiener’s Circle.
As high as his status has soared in the last year, however, he still is living a fairly normal life. Crowds went wild when he was shown recently at Blackhawks, Bulls and Cubs games, but he often goes unnoticed, including while waiting Sunday at O’Hare for his flight to Phoenix for the NFL annual meeting.
‘‘Someone else from the team was flying out, too, and I’m standing at the gate, and he texted me, ‘I can’t believe nobody is bothering you right now,’ ’’ Johnson said in an interview Monday with the Sun-Times. ‘‘I fly right under the radar, so it’s all good.’’
That will happen less and less the longer he coaches the Bears, whether it goes well or not. So far, coming off an 11-6 season, a playoff victory against the Packers and free hot dogs, the attention has been positive.
Johnson was suited to be the front man for that, and the Bears badly needed it after predecessor Matt Eberflus’ dull demeanor and perpetual missteps. Johnson was regarded as a brilliant offensive mind, but he brought an unexpected, genuine intensity, too.
He wasn’t playing a character, for example, in those raucous locker-room scenes in which players erupted as he pulled off his shirt or yelled, ‘‘[Expletive] the Packers. . . . I [expletive] hate those guys.’’ He fed off the vibe, and it resonated.
‘‘Nothing that happens in that locker room is done for show,’’ Johnson said. “It’s entirely for our players. That’s how I’ve always seen it, and that won’t change.”
Then he smirked.
‘‘Maybe I should be a little bit more aware that there are cameras in there,’’ he said.
Hopefully not.
The spotlight is relatively new to Johnson, 39, who was a walk-on quarterback at North Carolina and a relatively unknown assistant who rose to the coordinator level only four years ago. He married his high school sweetheart. They have a young family, and he has been doing his best to ‘‘sync’’ with them now that he’s in the lighter part of his work calendar.
Other than being an NFL coach, he’s a regular guy who became somewhat of an overnight celebrity in the third-largest market in the country.
‘‘The best thing about this city is there’s so much that it offers: restaurants, museums, sporting events,’’ Johnson said. ‘‘But, as a result, there is a little more recognition, and that comes with the territory.
‘‘People have been incredibly respectful of my family time. But I appreciate that we live in a city that loves their NFL team. That’s a pretty cool thing. I also know that when things don’t go well, they’re going to let us know about it. It just so happened that they felt like the year went pretty well last year, so there’s a lot of positive feedback right now.’’
That’s modest. No Chicago coach or manager could touch Johnson’s approval rating.
While he didn’t seek stardom, he seems comfortable with it. He also has a healthy grasp of how fast it can flip on him if the Bears start sliding. Matt Nagy won Coach of the Year in 2018, then fans chanted, ‘‘Fire Nagy!’’ at his son’s high school football game as the Bears spiraled in 2021.
It’s always easier at the beginning, when expectations are at their lowest, and they were rarely as low as they were coming out of the Eberflus debacle. Johnson won’t be playing with house money anymore. The Bears were good last season, and the demand — rightfully — is for them to become great.
‘‘People outside the building are going to have a win total projection and be talking Super Bowls and all that, and that’s their business,’’ Johnson said. ‘‘We go into our team meeting and set our goals, and we’re going to stick to them. It’s really consistent with how we’ve operated.’’
A little more than a year into the job, Johnson has been fantastic with the dual roles of running the team and being the face of it. The Bears occasionally have found someone good at one or the other but rarely at both. He has been exactly what they needed, and he’s only getting started.
The Bears need an influx of young defensive talent on the field who collect a reasonable paycheck off of it.
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