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Chicago Bears fans are beginning to feel the excitement of Ben Johnson as their team’s head coach, and former NFL quarterback Robert Griffin III believes there is good reason for that.
Johnson was hired to be Chicago’s head coach in January following the midseason dismissal of Matt Eberflus. The highly regarded former offensive coordinator of the Detroit Lions, Johnson was among the top candidates for multiple jobs around the NFL in January.
Now, as the Bears’ head coach, he has a big task ahead of him: turn around a franchise that has won just a single playoff game in 18 years and has made it to the postseason only three times in that same period. And the only way he will likely achieve that goal is by helping Caleb Williams, the No. 1 overall draft pick from a year ago, become one of the best quarterbacks in the league.
Griffin, like Williams, was an elite prospect coming out of college, and the now-media member thinks that Johnson can transform Williams after an up-and-down rookie season in Chicago.
“Ben Johnson didn’t come to Chicago to reinvent who Caleb Williams is as a QB,” Griffin posted on X, formerly Twitter. “He came to help the Chicago Bears win and maximize Caleb Williams’ potential by helping him grow in his areas of weakness without totally abandoning his strengths. Ben Johnson will get it done.
“Don’t let the camp ints make you panic. It’s part of the learning process for Caleb in a new system, being asked to do new things. The place to make those mistakes are in practice so he can test with trial and error what he can get away with and what plays his WRs/TEs can make.”
Williams was the consensus top pick in last year’s draft after winning the Heisman in 2022 with USC. However, things didn’t always look great for the rookie or the Bears in 2024.
His debut went particularly poorly; he threw for just 93 yards on 29 attempts and was sacked twice. He then threw two interceptions and for 174 yards in Week 2. Williams finally threw his first touchdown pass in Week 3, although the Bears lost to the Indianapolis Colts in a game in which he threw 52 times.
Williams did experience a two-month stretch from late October to late December in which he did not throw an interception, although he also did not throw for a TD in four straight games. His play was especially criticized as the Bears lost 10 straight games and averaged just 14 points per game in that span.
As offensive coordinator of the Lions, Johnson oversaw the revival of Jared Goff’s career, as well as the Lions becoming one of the best teams in the NFL after years of mediocrity.
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