{"id":959058,"date":"2026-07-30T00:18:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T00:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/959058\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T00:18:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T00:18:16","slug":"ben-johnson-named-the-3rd-best-play-caller-by-nfl-dcs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/959058\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Johnson Named the 3rd-Best Play Caller by NFL DCs."},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">As Bears fans, we all loved what we saw last year out of Ben Johnson. It was an offense Bears fans have dreamed about, literally their whole lives. We thought we might have had a glimpse of an offense with Marc Trestman in 2013, but that quickly derailed. Matt Nagy gave up hope, but the same collapse happened.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Ben Johnson is different. And the NFL thinks Ben Johnson is different as well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The Athletic\u2019s Ted Nguyen put together a top ten list, similar to the lists that ESPN\u2019s Jeremy Fowler puts out every year, using coaches and front offices to pick the best players at each position.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Nguyen\u2019s survey was to find out who the best offensive play callers are in the NFL. It\u2019s an exercise he\u2019s done the last few years. He spoke with current defensive coordinators and coaches from around the league, had them anonymously rank the best offensive minds, and he published the results.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">If you want to see his article in The Athletic, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7462904\/2026\/07\/29\/top-nfl-offensive-play-callers-2026\/?unlocked_article_code=1.1VA.Ah7K.pI7yVk3lhh_J&amp;source=emp_shared_article&amp;smid=ta-ios-share\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">you can check it out here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">But here are the highlights.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Let\u2019s not bury the lede: Ben Johnson was ranked 3rd in this survey. Ben was ranked first overall by at least one defensive coach, and the lowest he was on anyone\u2019s rankings was 4th. The way the voting broke down, there were three names- Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay, and Johnson- that clearly were ranked a cut above every other offensive play caller in the league.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Shanahan, like Johnson, was ranked first on at least one survey and no lower than fourth on any. He finished first overall. McVay also finished first on at least one survey, but his lowest ranking was sixth. Johnson, McVay, and Shanahan- two of those three names occupied the top two spots on every survey but one, where Josh McDaniels was ranked first on one person\u2019s list.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Matt LaFleur finished fourth, Liam Coen was fifth, Andy Reid was sixth, Shane Stichen was seventh, Josh McDaniels was eighth, Klint Kubiak finished ninth, and Mike McDaniel rounded out the top ten.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">In the other receiving votes category were Sean Payton, Kevin O\u2019Connell, Drew Petzing, Brian Schottenheim, Todd Monken, and Joe Brady.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">What this survey tells us in there is a new big three of offensive play callers in the league. That threesome is Johnson, Shanahan, and McVay. Shanny and McVay have been doing this a while; Johnson, however, is still ascending. The Bears have arguably the best play caller in the league, and it\u2019s not impossible that he could claim the top spot in this survey as early as next year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Ben Johnson is here, and the dividends are paying off already. What a time to be a Bears fan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Bears fans, we all loved what we saw last year out of Ben Johnson. It was an&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":959059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2070],"tags":[374,692,391,87017,741,2493,7,6],"class_list":["post-959058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago-bears","tag-bears","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-bears","tag-chicago-bears-coaching-staff","tag-chicago-bears-news","tag-chicagobears","tag-football","tag-nfl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117006060989015880","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=959058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/959059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=959058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=959058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=959058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}