Carmen Vitali
NFL reporter
“Hype, don’t win games.”
The outstanding statement was made by the corner of the Chicago Bears, Jaylon Johnson, in the middle of a room full of reporters last week at the team’s training facilities.
Unfortunately, the sixth year bear knows how true that feeling of first hand is.
“I’ve passed it for many times,” Johnson said. “I will get excited when we win in November and December and change some things and reach the playoffs, it’s when I will be excited.”
The Bears have been called “Low Seasonal Champions” several consecutive years. Each low season brings its part of hope and optimism, which makes it irresistible that Bears fans buy each time.
Last year, everything mounted on the shoulders of a rookie seafood. Caleb Williams was selected No. 1 in general. The Rome Odunze receiver was recruited about an hour later. The Bears signed the D’Andre Swift corridor above the market value. They changed to the veteran receiver of passes Keenan Allen. They already had Dj Moore in their arsenal. They had a talented paper list.
Despite all the exaggeration of the bee last year, different, or so many years of years are different, Chicago has nothing to show.
Around the last decade, the Bears have had exactly a winning season. They have the playoffs twice (the 2020 team did it with an 8-8 record). They have won anything in the postseason since 2011.
The franchise has turned its wheels in the mediocrity cycle, despite how good things look at the paper off after another. Fans deceive themselves when this year is different each year.
That is why it is curious that the players of the year as the infamously open Johnson are now preaching a more rooted perspective in realism, things could actually be Different.
Good business
Chicago has the tasks of a completely different approach for this low season to the one that fits in years.
It begins with the hiring of Ben Johnson. Johnson was the most coveted candidate in this year’s hiring cycle, although he was never a chief coach before. The first chief coach is not new for the bears, but to lose the ropes of the bag and make the monetary investment necessary to obtain a candidate like Johnson. The terms of the contract have been officially revealed, but the reports have estimated that their annual profits are in the range of eight figures. In addition, Johnson came with an experience Rolodex for his staff, including former chief coach and defensive coordinator for a long time Dennis Allen. Those wages are not cheap either.
It was then that things began to feel different.
Johnson and General Manager Ryan Poles launched on Johnson’s hiring. They did not have a previous working relationship, but share a lot of “career DNA”, even to work in the same cubicle as the graduated attendees in Boston College a separate year when they were having their beginnings.
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There were family dinners, where the couple gathered their wives and children. The poles told me that their children now draw photos to send Johnson’s children.
Chicago did not expect free agency to begin building the list in Johnson’s image. The Bears negotiated by two guards the week before free agency. They acquired Jonah Jackson, who had the best year of his career so far under Johnson in Detroit. Then, the advantage of the need for Kansas City bosses to throw Joe Thuney’s contract by trade by the four -time Super Bowl champion.
One of his first movements in real free agency was to sign the best of the market in Drew Dalman, a veteran whose father was an offensive line coach for a long time.
Other splashes of free agency included signing the defensive liners Gray Jarrett and Dayo Oloeyingbo.
All these signings were a direct contrast with the priorities of this same organization the last low season, where they invested a significant capital in skill positions and tried to survive with signs of value in the trenches.
As is currently, their young field marshal with experience have surrounded.
AFTERTEKEN A 68 capture record as a rookie, Williams now has boys directly in front of those who know how the defenses will try to counteract them. He has a center that broke a high intellectual soccer coefficient and the ability to handle multiple decisions prior to SNAP, such as identifying the “Mike” supporter and establishing protection accordingly, or alerting Williams to bombardments or pressure. The three veterans in the middle of the offensive line should also be able to help the tacoled in Braxton Jones and Darnell Wright and raise their game.
A solid offensive line also paves the way for a reinforced race game, which in turn can remove some from Williams’s pressure to make each play himself. It makes the offensive more complete and, therefore, more difficult to defend.
A robust defensive line on the other side of the ball, along with an experienced coordinator, can also relieve pressure by keeping a minimum and additional possessions. The priority was being built from the inside out.
The construction of the list is different.
Chicago connection
It is April in Lake Forest, Illinois. The voluntary part of the low season program has begun, and most of the Bears holders reported that they obtained their first impressions from Ben Johnson and his staff.
Players like Williams, Jaylon Johnson, veteran supporter Tremaine Edmunds and the right Tackle Darnell were present to talk to the media and transmit the first message of his chief coach.
The excessive feeling that came out of each player’s press conference was realism. That there is no reward without work. That, as exciting as the list is seen on paper, there is much to do in an integral way to build a truly successful team.
Starts on day 2, with Ben Johnson making a great entrance to the Quarterbacks room and (metaphorically) delivering Williams and the rest of the field Marshal Hall his first questionnaire that covered everything he had talked about with them the day before.
“So, now, first day and challenges us,” Williams said. “Everyone loves a challenge in this sport. It is one of the best things in sport, every day is a challenge. Today, we get the first.”
They are not just the field marshal either. Johnson plans to adopt an individual approach so that each player not only helps them reach their potential, but also to raise their floor.
“What excites me as a coach and what I am going to challenge our coaching staff to do is define the weaknesses within their game that we can work to develop and highlight,” Johnson told Fox Sports. “Something that I am part of in the past and will implement here is that each type will have an individual action plan of what is on tape, how we can improve certain elements of it.”
This individualized approach is one that demonstrates that Johnson walks along the walk, if these plans are implemented. As much as coaches say that their system is adapted to their staff, this is how it really does. Johnson has said that his offensive in Chicago Won seems his scheme in Detroit. Of course, elements, concepts, priorities, all can be consistent. But Williams is not Jared Goff. Swift is not Jahmyr Gibbs. Even Dalman, as good as he is not Frank Ragnow.
This is what Johnson can get from the players he currently has. How can you fit all the pieces in a successful and cohesive puzzle. It is easier to say it than to do it, but having a clearly communicated plan for that goal is a good start.
“Hi jumped and established a lot of two, he established a lot of not doing, established a precedent of what we are going to be a team, finding our identity and all that,” said Williams. “We are excited. Obviously, we have to work at work. We cannot be too excited because work has been done, but definitely excited about what will come and the future.”
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For a team that lacked direction, identity and belief before his arrival, Johnson has apparently said and done all the right things to start building a culture that includes all that.
“We have to do it,” Williams said. “It is something that time, energy, energy, effort, sacrifice, that does not mean that we put ourselves on the board on the board, that we are here, exercising, raising, more and more strong, faster. It is also we hang on the bottom, so it is a great season, so it is a task, so it is a task, so it is a bond link, so it is a link, so it is a task, so it is a task, so it is a task, so it is a task So it is a task, so it is a task, so it is a task, so it is a task, so it is a large amount, when it is possible that it is a link.
Indeed, Williams was a hand to celebrate Odunze’s birthday in a restaurant with other teammates during the weekend. He put a story on Instagram celebrating Moore’s birthday on Monday from the Bears costumes.
Johnson’s messaging until now has a bone and clear: he believes in this list, but success does not come without much work both inside and outside the field.
These crystalline expectations are a direct deviation of what the Bears players said they had last year. When things went wrong last season, it became a disaster without a clear path. There were contradictory messages from player to player, coach and fans were left with answers as a result of everything.
And he thought this is Johnson’s first week to the helm with players in the building, at least the message is constant.
The message is different.
The test is on the product
So where does that leave fans who want to believe in this team? A city desperate for athletic relevance? A founding franchise that has not reached the mountain in exactly four decades?
There are still interrogation signs. Games won will be played for another five months. We still don’t know much about Johnson as a chief coach. When errors inevitably occur, when the lesions threaten the depth table, when the bears are in the middle of their schedule and have to play the damn Green Bay Packers Again … How does the team respond? What happens then?
What is the saying? To get the results you have never had, you must do things you have never done.
In other words, you have to do things differently.
That is what the Bears have done this low season.
This team is already Different.
Carmen Vitali He is an NFL reporter for Fox Sports. Carmen had previous stops with the draft Network and the Bay Buccaneers. He spent six seasons with the BUCS, including 2020, who added the title of Super Bowl champion (and participant of the boat stop) to his curriculum. You can follow Carmen on Twitter in @Carmiev.
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