A new era of Chicago Bears football is here, hopefully for the better. The Bears made headlines on Monday January 20th by announcing they’d reached an agreement to hire Lions’ Offensive Coordinator Ben Johnson to be their next head coach. Johnson’s resume speaks for itself, there’s a reason he was a top coaching candidate last offseason. His surprising decision to return to Detroit was a fruitful one as his Lions offense shredded defenses league-wide for a 3rd consecutive season. The prospect of him bringing similar production to a Bears franchise so devoid of modern offensive success is thrilling enough, but there’s a bigger picture here.

What’s most exciting about this news, at least to a humble Bears fan like myself, is just the fact that they didn’t decide to play it safe this time. They drafted a QB first overall and thought their new OC hire would be the key to unlocking the offense behind this talented young signal caller. This safe play worked out disastrously but, to my surprise, they recognized the mistake and took action to rectify it. Waldron and Eberflus canned, sure we suffered the rest of the season but this front office had themselves a plan. When Ben Johnson surprisingly became available after the Lions’ upset loss the Bears were on the ball. They brought in Eddie George to satisfy the pesky Rooney Rule and, as soon as they seemingly could, they closed the deal with Johnson. 

Whether or not he ends up being a good coach and winning a lot with the Bears, there are some great changes happening. The Bears did the thing everyone wanted them to do and they seem to be keeping on the right track by aggressively pursuing Johnson’s preferred coaching staff. Dennis Allen as a DC is a savvy pick that should assuage some concerns about how a defense under Ben Johnson’s reign might perform. 

There is a lot of offseason left, but as of right now Vegas has the Bears as clear favorites to win the Offseason Championship for the 2nd consecutive season. Fingers crossed and Bear Down.