When the Bears hired Ben Johnson last offseason, we had a pretty clear idea of who he was. The young coach had saved Jared Goff's career and lit the Lions' offense aflame by grafting much of the old Sean McVay offense into a new approach in Detroit. His system included a ton of motion, play-action and intermediate in-breakers. All the classics ... with some new wrinkles, thanks to unique players such as Jahmyr Gibbs and Jameson Williams in the fold.
So as Johnson took charge of second-year quarterback Caleb Williams, the burning questions were clear. How would Johnson reverse the arc for Williams, the 2024 No. 1 pick who had suffered as a rookie with late throws, missed targets, plenty of sacks and too many risks? How, if at all, could Williams play the pristine, timing-oriented ball that Goff had proved integral to Johnson's approach? Would Johnson lose patience with an oft-scrambling off-schedule playmaker?
It's easy to look at the improvement of the Bears' offense in 2025 and say that our questions were well-founded. Williams' sack rate dropped from 10.0% to 3.8% (good job, Johnson), but his completion percentage fell from 62.5% to 58.1% (still inaccurate). The Johnson-Williams partnership must still be a work in progress. One with promise, but in progress nonetheless. Right?
The scope here is too narrow. It commits the most frequent error of our modern NFL discourse and analysis. It looks at everything through the lens of the quarterback, believing that the entire offense will only go as he goes and that all innovation is meant to directly impact his life. The Johnson offense resurrected Goff and looks as if it might boost Williams to elite heights -- but that's not the only thing it's doing.
In fact, much of Johnson's first year in Chicago was not about Williams' game at all. The Bears' offense was stripped down to the studs and rebuilt anew, in a process Johnson knew would be painful and slow. But it worked. It set up the Bears for total team success -- not only in 2025 with a revitalized quarterback but for years to come with a complete system. And it started not on the air but on the ground.
Getting the run game going
The Bears had the earliest possible bye week in 2025 -- Week 5 -- and were 2-2 entering it. There were big defensive issues to address (31st in success rate). On offense, they were about league average ... but with a major imbalance, ranking 12th in EPA per dropback and 31st in EPA per rush.
"It was the running game," Bears offensive coordinator Press Taylor told me. "We really needed to get the running game going."
The running game is the lifeblood of Johnson's offense, and not in a trite, lip-servicey way -- a thing coaches say to placate their offensive linemen. Despite his new hat as the head coach, Johnson still installs the running game on a weekly basis himself, as he did in Detroit.
"I haven't been around a playcaller, let alone a head coach, that installs his own running game," Bears tight end Cole Kmet said. "He has everybody in the room -- receivers, tight ends, backs, quarterbacks, linemen. We're all together as he installs."
Johnson's heavy hand in the teaching of the run game is both a testament to its importance in his offense ... and its complexity. The Lions were notorious for running everything under the sun during Johnson's time as offensive coordinator, and he made a conscious decision before his first year in Chicago to install the offense as it was.
Over three seasons in Detroit, Johnson's offense expanded in the stability offered by Goff, center Frank Ragnow and receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown. Fine adjustments are easier between longtime teammates, and new spinoffs of the playbook were written after the original chapters had long been internalized. Johnson didn't want to take the Bears' offense back to square one and rediscover those innovations, so he dumped it on their desks with the telltale thud of a thick textbook. But it was a lot to absorb in a short window, and through four weeks of Johnson's first season in Chicago, the running game proved difficult to stomach.
The staff went back to the drawing board with their offensive linemen -- namely veteran guard Joe Thuney and center Drew Dalman. Thuney had played in two different offenses with different languages (New England and Josh McDaniels; Kansas City and Andy Reid) and could give Johnson and his staff honest feedback about the design of the rushing attack and how it was understood and communicated across the line. Dalman, as the center, was in charge of identifying the Mike linebacker -- off his point, the rest of the blockers would know their responsibilities. His understanding of the intent of the play and his authority to communicate it needed to be unquestionable.
Here's a good snapshot of what it looked like pre-bye. In Week 4 against the Raiders, the Bears are down by five but in scoring range late in the fourth quarter. They want to run the clock as low as possible before they score a go-ahead touchdown.
Before the snap, Raiders strongside linebacker Germaine Pratt (No. 57) is close to the line of scrimmage, and it has the Bears in an operational tizzy. Tight ends Kmet (85) and Durham Smythe (81) are requesting more information from the core of the formation, while both Dalman and Williams point.
— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) August 18, 2026
The Bears end up with three players (the center, left guard and left tackle) all on one defensive tackle while linebacker Devin White (45) runs unimpeded through the crease and meets D'Andre Swift behind the line of scrimmage. You can see the frustration from Thuney (62) and Dalman (52) after the play. Something got lost in translation.
Remember, almost all of the Bears' offensive linemen were new to one another last season. A carousel of left tackles didn't help the building of chemistry -- but Thuney had never played beside Dalman, who had never played beside right guard Jonah Jackson, who had never played beside right tackle Darnell Wright. Kmet was a veteran at tight end, but fellow tight end Colston Loveland was a rookie. In fact, Jackson was the only one with experience in Johnson's offense. Though the old Lions running game accumulated over years of community growth, the Bears were trying to manufacture that in mere weeks.
A lot of work in a little time can invite errors. In four games, the Bears had an appalling 11 pre-snap penalties (nine false starts, one illegal shift and one illegal motion). They were 31st in EPA lost on false starts and 30th in EPA lost on pre-snap penalties altogether. Not all of those penalties were on called runs, of course, but the Bears were actually breaking the huddle a whole second faster on called passes (19.6 seconds on the play clock) than they were on called runs (18.5 seconds). Many of Chicago's run calls were packaged with passes, and Williams could "can" one call to get to the other call. Again, no kid gloves on Johnson's offense. He wanted both calls available, and he was going to have them available.
But the late assembly at the line, along with the time Williams needed to identify the defense and potentially change the call, was stressing a still-developing system. Johnson and his staff tried to alleviate the pressure by one-wording playcalls -- smashing each of them into one load-bearing keyword.
"If we want to make this 10-word playcall into one word, we've still got to have something that's going to get the receivers the idea of where to line up, the line's going to understand the protection, the backs understand the action, the quarterbacks understand the read. It's on us to give as many mind taps as possible," Taylor said. "We came up with some pretty weird stuff."
Every offense uses keywords like this to execute in the no-huddle. But to have up to 10 full playcalls on the one-word sheet for any given week -- calls in which the Bears could still motion, shift, kill a play, adjust an alignment, etc. -- and then to replace those with 10 new ones the following week was quite the task. Johnson, offensive coordinator Declan Doyle and Taylor all hailed from pretty wordy backgrounds, and it took a lot of brainstorming and outside research to get a workable one-word system.
They also leaned on the players for help. Many of the Bears' younger players lived in codeword-style offenses in college, where one-word calls for the sake of tempo are far more commonplace. They gave ideas for clever mnemonics and enjoyed bullying Taylor during his Wednesday presentations on the absurd portmanteaus he had concocted.
These one-worders weren't training wheels, mind you -- just better teaching. Just as Johnson had put the full onus of his playbook on his young offense, he also put the onus on himself to meet the players where they were -- to give them the offense in a language they could understand.
The Bears' communication demons were not fully exorcised -- it was pre-snap confusion that led to an embarrassing playoff interception against the Packers -- but they were diminished. They got to the line faster. Johnson started putting more players in motion at the snap, especially in the running game (from 54.4% of runs pre-bye to 75.7% of runs post-bye). The many motions made run fits tougher on the defense. The running game didn't trickle out but exploded forth -- like water from an opened dam. Chicago ended the 2025 season second to only the Rams in both rushing success rate and EPA per rush.
Solving the communication issues was one of several switches that were flicked in the Bears' off week. Another was directional. Through the first four weeks, the Bears ran as frequently to their left as they did to their right. But from Week 5 on, no team had a clearer directional tendency in the running game than the Bears, who saw a whopping 66% of their RB carries go to the offense's right side behind the mauling duo of Jackson and Wright. That would have been the biggest left/right skew of a full season over the past decade, according to NFL Next Gen Stats' numbers.
It's rare to see a playcaller feed a tackle the way he might feed a star receiver, but that's what Johnson did for Wright. And he wasn't the only one. As running backs Swift and Kyle Monangai grew accustomed to the displacement that Jackson and Wright could create on the backside of zone runs, they began gravitating toward them. Not every run to the right was called to go that way, but water finds its level. And good backs find daylight.
Wide receivers also have serious run-blocking demands in this offense (remember, they're also in the meetings). And Chicago became more intentional about who it asked to fill that role. DJ Moore, who had taken five snaps in a tight alignment through the first four weeks of the season, didn't get a single snap in tight alignments in the three weeks coming out of the bye; Rome Odunze saw his usage there take an accompanying leap. When Odunze went down because of a foot injury, it created more space for Luther Burden III, an admirable blocker in his own right.
The Bears' running game, like the Lions units of Johnson's past, simply does not work without receivers who line up correctly, communicate with the tight ends and the quarterback for their assignment, understand how that assignment might change post-snap and dig their assignment out with legitimate effort. Without this commitment, the play-action passing game would never work to the level Johnson demands.
Unleashing the explosive plays
It's at this point in our understanding of what changed in the Johnson offense that we come to the easiest trap -- one that we absolutely must avoid: the idea that the run exists to set up the pass.
Yes, it's true that Johnson uses the run to set up the play-action pass, like every other coach. Few, if any offensive designers are as committed to a marriage between the running and passing games. Johnson is notoriously hypersensitive to the splits of his receivers. A receiver's split -- how wide he lines up relative to the numbers or the hash -- is communicated by the formation, but it can be trumped by specific concepts called from that formation and adjusted again by the quarterback at the line of scrimmage. You simply can't get them wrong. If you do, the opposing defense might get a tip that it's run or pass, and that's not how this offense works.
"Past offenses here, it used to be 'line up about where you should be and get to a spot,'" Loveland said, recalling conversations he had with Bears veterans as he entered the league and endured Johnson's geometric fastidiousness. "Here, if you're in the wrong split, you're going to know. If you're off by half a yard, they're going to know, and you're going to know."
So the run sets up the pass. But that construction can trick us into thinking of the run as a jab, lulling the opponent into a predictable tempo and setting the reach for an inbound combination. The eventual incoming haymaker here is the play-action pass -- the payoff for all of those patient jabs. That is how some coaches think about the running game.
Not Johnson. He is here to hit explosives, and that is exactly what his running game is designed to do. Only the Dolphins had a higher explosive run rate from Week 5 on last season. That Rams running game, which just barely beat the Bears in success rate? Not nearly as explosive. They live on between-the-tackles runs with the intent to stay ahead of the sticks. The Bears get outside of the tackles with misdirection, lead blockers, pullers -- anything to get a talented ball carrier with a runway.
As Taylor said in a news conference last week, "We don't look at the run game as a way to stay on track. We look at the run game as a way to attack defenses and really be explosive and continue to just put our foot on the gas the entire game."
The running game is not the jab. It's the haymaker. But the play-action pass is also the haymaker. The haymaker sets up the haymaker. Do you fear death?
It's this paradigm of relentless attacking that helps us understand what is in store for the Bears in 2026. Again, the focus all offseason has been on the quarterback -- this time, his completion percentage. Williams completed only 58.1% of his passes last season -- 36th among 38 qualified quarterbacks. Johnson would certainly like to increase that number. He called it "something that we're going to emphasize." What he said right after was just as important. "We want to give these pass catchers -- we have so many talented ones -- opportunities to run after the catch. So we're being very critical on where we're putting that football with them."
Nothing about taking more checkdowns. Nothing about risky throws or too many scrambles -- myths that have been spun about Williams and his fit in this offense since its inception. Just precise placement on YAC athletes who are on the move -- namely, over the middle of the field. Explosive plays.
This has always been the point of the offense, even going back to the Goff days. Williams says he believes in explosives in the same way his head coach does, and he has the rare physical traits necessary to conjure them. He has the quickness and strength to escape the pocket, the anticipation of space and leverage down the field, and the flexibility to hurl deep shots while on the move. And he has the arm ... oh my heavens, the arm.
Goff averaged 7.0 air yards per attempt on play-action passes through three seasons under Johnson; Williams was at 10.2 last season. This isn't just shot selection or scramble drill noise. It's a schematic choice. Goff averaged 9.0 air yards per attempt on in-breaking routes under Johnson. Williams is at 11.7. He had 12 completed in-breakers at least 20 yards downfield last season, whereas Goff had 17 such plays in three combined seasons. Williams is quite literally expanding the scope of the offense.
Of course, there is some shot selection. Goff takes the checkdowns that Williams doesn't, because Williams was escaping pressure that Goff couldn't outrun. Williams can take more of those checkdowns, which will help the completion percentage -- but that's not the point. The point is to generate -- say it with me -- more explosives.
"Two, three, four times a game, if you're just putting the ball in play a little bit quicker to the backs, we get three, four, five more calls to give you," Taylor said of Williams' increased focus on checkdowns in Year 2. "And we'll keep calling those. We'll keep unloading the clip."
Williams has this in him. Here's a checkdown from Week 1 against the Vikings. With a lurking quarters safety who wants to drive on the dig route from Burden (10) and a middle linebacker sinking deep into the throwing window, Williams dumps the ball to the back on time for an easy first down.
— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) August 18, 2026
The next time the Bears meet the Vikings, Williams has a similar concept with a similar lurking safety opposite the dig (this time to Odunze). But as the linebacker hasn't achieved nearly as much depth, Williams uncorks a laser beam that doesn't just tattoo Odunze on his chestplate -- it holds him in place to keep him away from coverage.
— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) August 18, 2026
That second throw is a high-level pass that not many quarterbacks are making -- they simply don't have the arm to cash this check. Similarly, few coaches are calling a passing game as predicated on shot plays as Johnson -- they simply don't have the quarterback to cash the check.
Our early perspective on Johnson and Williams focused on the ways that Williams is not Goff, and how he might fail to fit Johnson's offense. That view mistook Goff's precise footwork and picturesque timing as the goal of Johnson's offense, when it was really the vehicle. It was how Goff created explosives. He didn't have the huge arm or the magical scramble ability to do so otherwise. Williams does -- and he has the mentality of a big-play hunter. He and Johnson are of spookily similar mind -- two peas in a highly explosive pod. Anyone who thinks the Bears are going to throttle Williams' octane has learned the wrong lesson. They're going to keep banging that big drum.
Explosiveness in the passing game is the hidden value that completion percentage fails to capture. We have better stats to measure down-to-down consistency (Williams was 23rd in dropback success rate). We have even better stats to measure who is creating big positive plays while avoiding big negative plays (Williams was 14th in EPA per dropback).
More importantly, other players are seeing Johnson's vision and imitating Williams' devotion to it. As Williams has nailed down his details, fewer Bears practices are thrown into disarray by mistaken splits and forgotten motions.
"It used to be, 'Man, these guys are just being jerks to me about every little thing,'" Taylor said, chuckling as he remembers that first summer of installs. "We have guys now that do understand. And when you see it and how challenging it is, you understand the beauty of it. Now, it's important to our guys. We have guys that love it now."
What to expect for a 2026 encore
Perhaps this is the biggest change in the Johnson offense entering the 2026 season. There were guys who trusted the process at this time last year -- but did they love it? Unlikely.
Yet doubters become disciples when the scoreboard shows wins instead of losses. The cardiac Bears sure stole a game or two in an 11-6 season. But that does nothing to dull belief in the single-minded head coach. If anything, it sharpens it. Those impossible wins feel like the product of those fine details, those big plays so hard-earned in the exactness of little executions. That's the clever trick of the blurry game of football, and it's the way each Bear -- from Williams at the top of the depth chart all the way down -- carves out a slice of authorship over each unlikely win.
The story will always be written as Williams "figuring it out" in the Johnson offense, and I get it. It has enough veracity to it, even if it is not complete and not satisfying. The victory of the Bears' offense is in so many ways beyond the quarterback. Johnson will be understood as a quarterback whisperer who fixed Goff, then fixed Williams. Again, it's not wrong, but it's not accurate. He's a wonderful offensive mastermind, the first real challenger to McVay's and Kyle Shanahan's dominance over the past decade -- but he is so because he's a running game designer and a one-word caller. He has built a running game around a right tackle in unprecedented ways. He has demanded new heights from his receivers as blockers. He has raised the bar for commitment to an explosive offense.
Perhaps the fire will peter out in 2026 -- wilder things have happened in this league. The retirement of Dalman at 27 was an unwelcome surprise, and the left tackle position is still unsolved. Burden and Monangai are banged up. There's a lot that goes into making an offense good, and accordingly, there are a lot of inflection points at which it can go wrong.
If you want to bet on regression, be my guest. Johnson called his team the "No. 1 regression candidate" this summer in a nod to that doubt. But I have no interest betting against this head coach and what he did in Year 1. In their second offseason under Johnson, the Bears have their first opportunity to take accumulated experience and parlay it into faster operations, better adjustments and perfect execution.
They understand it now, the beauty of it.