Bears hiring Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson as new head coach for QB Caleb Williams

The Chicago Bears are hiring Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, their long-reported top candidate, to be their next head coach, CBS Sports NFL insider Jonathan Jones reports. 

The Lions’ Johnson-led attacks averaged 29.0 points per game since he became Detroit’s OC in 2022, the most in the NFL in that time. The 33.2 points per game they produced in 2024 led the league and was the most in a season in franchise history. Detroit’s offense was No. 1 in the NFL in numerous key metrics during his Lions tenure while working with quarterback Jared Goff.  

Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs led the NFL in scrimmage touchdowns (20) in 2024, and wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown earned consecutive first team All-Pro selections in 2023 and 2024 after becoming the first player in Lions history with 100 or more catches, 1,000 or more receiving yards and 10 or more receiving touchdowns in consecutive seasons. 

At the age of 38, Johnson will now be tasked to elevate 2024 first overall pick Caleb Williams and weapons like wide receiver D.J. Moore, wide receiver Rome Odunze, wide receiver Keenan Allen, tight end Cole Kmet and former Lions running back D’Andre Swift going forward after Chicago had the fifth-worst scoring offense in the league in 2024, averaging 18.2 points per game. 

Williams threw for 3,541 passing yards, 20 passing touchdowns and six interceptions while completing 62.5% of his passes for an 87.8 passer rating. One of Johnson’s top priorities will be to shore up an offensive front that allowed Williams to be sacked 68 times in 2024, tied for the third-most ever in a single season. However, many of those sacks can be directly attributed to the Bears quarterback with an average time to throw of 3.13 seconds in 2024, the fourth-longest in the entire league. 

The Bears as a team allowed a quarterback pressured rate of 35.4%, which was around league average with a ranking of 18th in the NFL last season. Williams was the first Chicago quarterback to start every game in a season since Jay Cutler in 2009, snapping the longest such active drought in the NFL. However, the Bears still have a drought Johnson and Williams could help them end: They’ve never had a quarterback throw for 4,000 yards in a season despite being around for 105 NFL seasons. That remains the longest active such drought all time. 

* Ranks out of 36 qualified quarterbacks in 2024

Johnson will inherit the NFL’s 13th-ranked scoring defense (21.8 points per game allowed) from the 2024 season with a couple of Pro Bowl building blocks in edge rusher Montez Sweat and cornerback Jaylon Johnson. As Johnson’s former boss Dan Campbell showed, nailing the coordinator hires can dramatically uplift a franchise’s fortunes. Time for the first-time NFL head coach in Johnson to get to work finding his defensive and special teams running mates in Chicago.