A $13 million culture shift: Inside Ben Johnson’s transformation of the Bears

Posted November 29, 2025 4:15 pm

By Jon Greenberg

If Ben Johnson were a college football coach, his agent would be renegotiating his contract right about now.

And someone would be writing a big, fat check, because it’s obvious that Johnson is a culture changer and a program builder, and those kinds of coaches make a lot of money.

Johnson, of course, already does. He is in the first season of a five-year contract that is paying him a reported $13 million annually. Twelve games into his first season, it’s clear that he is underpaid.

Even before that outlay of cash, the McCaskey-owned franchise was a long way from the George Halas days, where nickels supposedly had the weight of manhole covers. But the Johnson hire in January was still seen as a sign that the Bears weren’t going cheap anymore.

So, for once, the Bears paid up, and what do you know, they’re getting their money’s worth. They’ve got everyone in Chicago feeling like 13 million bucks.

With a dominating 24-15 victory over Philadelphia on Black Friday, Johnson’s Bears improved to 9-3, ensuring the team has a winning record for the first time since 2018, and just the second since Lovie Smith was fired after a 10-6 season in 2012.

A franchise famous for tripping over itself has somehow found a clear path to prosperity. If the playoffs started today, the Bears, a team that lost 10 straight games last season, would be the second seed in the NFC.

To put this in perspective, Matt Eberflus was fired after last year’s Thanksgiving debacle in Detroit, making him the first coach in the history of the NFL’s charter franchise to lose his job during a season.

Just a year later, his replacement, Johnson (who was on the other side of the field in that fateful game), is ripping off his shirt in a gleeful postgame celebration as people are comparing him to the franchise greats, who are essentially just George Halas and Mike Ditka.

For the first time in years, Chicago is thankful for a Bears coach.

In the NFL, great coaches, like great quarterbacks, are worth their weight in gold. We don’t know if Caleb Williams is great yet. But we’re getting a pretty good sense of Johnson’s value. There’s no need to spend a second worrying about the future when the present is so enjoyable.

With the turkey eaten and just over a month left in the season, it’s now time to talk playoffs. As of this writing, The Athletic’s simulator gives the Bears a 74% chance to make the postseason.

Essentially, they need to win two of their remaining five games to ensure a rare playoff berth. While one win and some luck might work too, I’m pretty sure the Bears aren’t going 1-4 down the stretch. This isn’t a fluke or a mirage.

What Thursday’s win showed is that after months of beating tomato cans, Chicago can slug it out with the heavyweights, too. No more apologizing for wins.

Against a Vic Fangio defense, the Bears ran for 281 yards on a windy day in Philadelphia. D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai combined for 255 yards and two touchdowns on 40 carries. It was the first time the Bears had two 100-yard rushers since … 1985.

No, Williams didn’t light it up. He completed just 17 of 36 passes for 154 yards and threw an interception on a tipped pass at the line of scrimmage. But when Chicago needed him to make a play, he threw a touchdown pass to Cole Kmet to ice the game in the fourth quarter.

The Bears had 28 first downs (17 running, 10 passing, one penalty) and converted 10 of 17 third-down opportunities. They almost doubled Philadelphia in time of possession: 39:10 to 20:42.

But the key, as usual, was takeaways. The Bears came into the game leading the NFL with 24, and the Eagles had committed a league-low six. When Kevin Byard III picked off Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts in the third quarter, I thought the Bears had a real chance to pull off the upset. When Nahshon Wright forced a fumble on one of Hurts’ famed “Tush Push” plays, I thought this was definitely the Bears’ night. Byard leads the NFL with six interceptions. Wright leads the NFL with eight takeaways. Defensive coordinator Dennis Allen has certainly earned his contract, too.

Defense and running the football. The formula still works after all these years.

For all the focus on Johnson’s passing offense, he showed in Detroit how dedicated he was to the running game. The Bears finally beefed up their offensive line, and it showed Friday as Swift and Monangai had acreage to run through. The coach’s play designs helped.

Johnson is no Matt Nagy, who once said: “I know we need to run the ball more. I’m not an idiot.”

Nagy, of course, wasn’t an idiot either in his first season with the Bears in 2018. That was, coincidentally enough, the last time the Bears had both a winning record and made the playoffs. That was the last time Chicago was this happy about its football team.

At this point seven years ago, everyone was in love with Nagy’s “Club Dub” postgame celebrations, just like they are now with Johnson’s “Good, better, best” rallying cry.

Johnson goes a little nuts in the locker room after wins, and on Friday, he put a little extra mustard on it as he ripped off his shirt to land Chicagoans free hot dogs from The Wieners Circle.

I’m sure I wasn’t alone in comparing this win to the Bears’ Week 14 victory over the Los Angeles Rams in 2018. Chicago beat the first-place Rams 15-6 to improve to 9-4. The Bears had mostly beaten bozos up to that point, but that win on “Sunday Night Football” showed Nagy’s team was for real. Chicago would win 12 games that season and roll into the playoffs before losing to the Eagles in the famed double-doink game.

We don’t know yet how this Bears season will end, but with five games left, it’s clear this team is worth getting excited about. And it’s indisputable that Johnson is worth every comma in his contract.