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‘To be quite frank with you, I kinda enjoyed beating Matt LaFleur twice a year.’
As if former Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson wasn’t already disliked in Green Bay, he only added fuel to the fire on Wednesday in his introductory press conference. Just two years after his general manager, Ryan Poles, said to the world that his Chicago Bears were going to “take the North and never give it back,” Johnson, now the head coach of the Bears, took a direct shot at the Packers.
Many were surprised that Johnson stayed in the NFC North, a division that saw every team but the Bears make the playoffs this year. After rambling about how the North was the “toughest division in football,” Johnson noted another reason why he chose Chicago over other jobs that he was considered for:
“To be quite frank with you, I kinda enjoyed beating Matt LaFleur twice a year.”
In Johnson’s three years as the Lions’ coordinator, Detroit went 5-1 against Green Bay, with the Packers’ only win coming on Thanksgiving of 2023 at Ford Field.
Despite the Lions and Minnesota Vikings finishing with a better regular season record than the Packers in 2024, Johnson already seems to understand what the Bears job is really about: contending with Green Bay.
We’ll see how that goes for him. We’re still waiting on Poles, who has a 15-36 record as general manager and hasn’t gone .500 a single time in three seasons, to “take the North.”
