PALM BEACH, Fla. — The NFL owners meetings are in full swing at The Breakers in south Florida, a gathering where the Chicago Bears will continue to push forward with their 2025 reboot under new coach Ben Johnson. At the end of an active March that saw the team add at least five potential starters to the roster while also fortifying their depth, the Bears have now turned their attention to April’s NFL draft.
Johnson, general manager Ryan Poles, team president/CEO Kevin Warren and chairman George McCaskey are all expected to offer thoughts on the Bears’ progress and plans over the next few days.
In the meantime, here are three things we’ve learned so far.
1. Johnson’s arrival in Chicago has many around the league intrigued.
The Bears received almost universal praise for their big catch in January, reeling in the candidate many tabbed as the hottest coaching prospect in this winter’s hiring cycle. Central to the interest is Johnson’s union with Bears quarterback Caleb Williams, with folks eager to see if the new coach can unlock a path to stardom for Williams, the No. 1 pick in the 2024 draft who had to persevere through a rocky and disruption-filled rookie season.
Johnson spent the last three seasons as offensive coordinator for the Detroit Lions and was instrumental in the ascension of quarterback Jared Goff, who became a catalyst as they won two consecutive NFC North titles.
Count Cincinnati Bengals coach Zac Taylor among the big believers in Johnson.
“He’s competitive, man,” Taylor said Monday morning during the AFC coaches breakfast. “He’s competitive. He’s the right man for the job and I think he’s going to have tremendous success there.”
Taylor is admittedly biased. He and Johnson developed a bond over their four seasons working together on Joe Philbin’s offensive staff with the Miami Dolphins. From their earliest days side by side in the Dolphins quarterbacks room, Taylor was struck by how Johnson combined his renowned intelligence with his sharp communication skills.
“He’s one of the smartest guys I’ve been around,” Taylor said. “He really changed the technology for us with the ways we drew our plays and operated with our playbook. Ben is the best in the world at all that. … He’s such a smart football coach. But he has also earned everything he has gotten. He really worked from the bottom of this league all the way to the top.”
2. Johnson faces a big challenge in adjusting to his new responsibilities as a first-time head coach who will also serve as the offensive play caller.
That’s hardly a unique set-up with 19 of the 32 current NFL head coaches serving as their team’s offensive play callers. But that doesn’t make it any less demanding.
“There is one place where you cannot hide in the National Football League,” Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Monday morning. “And that’s as a play-calling head coach. You cannot hide.”
As the Bears offensive play caller, Johnson will lean on new coordinator Declan Doyle to be, per his description, a table setter of sorts. Doyle, 28, was hired this winter after spending the last two seasons as Sean Payton’s tight ends coach in Denver and the four before that as an offensive assistant in New Orleans.
So what traits do play-calling head coaches desire most in their offensive coordinators who assist them?
“The only way you can enter into the sphere as a play-calling head coach is if you are properly assisted,” McDaniel said. “There is a merger, so to speak, of a couple different jobs. And you can’t do two jobs or you’ll be poor at both. To merge those, you have to have the support system within your coaching staff that enables you.
“What that boils down to is having people who can see the game how you see it or can anticipate how you will see it and are then willing to do a lot of front-end work so you can make your required decisions in a shorter amount of time.”
Taylor, meanwhile, said he has benefited greatly from the support of his coordinators in Cincinnati — first Brian Callahan (2019-2023) and then Dan Pincher last season. Specifically, Taylor emphasized, reliable feedback is needed within games. And during preparation phases, there must also be consistent alignment with the vision for the offense.
“(My offensive coordinators) have showed me a standard that I might not have been able to describe before I got here,” Taylor said. “But now that I’ve been through it, I can describe it thoroughly. They keep the train moving when I am being pulled away. So picture a train running and me running alongside of it to catch up and jump in. I need somebody who can catch me up to speed (quickly).”
3. Grady Jarrett may not need long to establish himself as a trusted leader within the Bears defense.
Jarrett may be changing teams for the time in his 11-season career, signing with the Bears three weeks ago after his 10-year run with the Atlanta Falcons ended abruptly. The 31-year-old defensive tackle was a fifth-round draft pick in 2015 but quickly became an impact starter and a tone-setting leader in Atlanta.
Dan Quinn, the current coach of the Washington Commanders, was in his first season with the Falcons when Jarrett was drafted. Quinn spent the next six seasons coaching Jarrett and spoke highly about the veteran lineman’s unique blend of passion, competitiveness and work ethic.
“Grady just always had that leadership piece to him,” Quinn told the Tribune. “I don’t think you’re born with leadership. But he was damn near born with a ‘C’ (for captain) on his chest.
“There are some traits that you learn in your environment. But his makeup was a little different. Everything he did, it was just like ‘I’ve got to prove it.’”
Jarrett received $28.5 million in guaranteed money on the three-year, $42 million contract he signed with the Bears this month and will be the team’s starter at three-technique defensive tackle.
Quinn, whose Commanders faced Jarrett in s December prime-time game, wasn’t concerned that the defensive tackle is nearing a production falloff as his 32nd birthday approaches in April. Jarrett, Quinn noted, still plays with impressive quickness and instincts that are heightened by his motor.
“Chicago really found not just a good player, but a multiplier in the locker room,” Quinn said. “He’ll make others around him better by the standards he sets and by how he does things.”
