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Chapter 1: What does Ben Johnson think about the Bears' success in 2025?
Rahimi Harrison-Grody, middays 10 to 2 on 104.3 The Score. This is Rahimi Harrison-Grody on 104.3 The Score. And Ben Johnson spoke earlier today at the NFL owners meetings. And he had a lot of quotes, but none of them may be as powerful as this note that we got from Courtney Cronin. That was, uh, that was...
It kind of runs in the same vein of Michael Jordan and Gail King from Jordan essentially saying he loves the game so much that he had to take a backseat. Ben Johnson is also taking it personally because here's what he has to say. As much as you loved the Bears' first playoff win in 15 years... Well, that's not exactly what Ben Johnson is thinking about.
He said coaches will be hyper-vigilant to any complacency and entitlement after the success of last season. While he was happy to hear from fans and supporters, quote, for about a week, end quote, about how exciting the 2025 season was, he doesn't want to hear any more about how good the Bears were as they have moved on to 2026. And to that I say amen, Ben Johnson, because guess what?
The majority of people who understand football are definitely on board with that sentiment. Ben Johnson has spoken, and while I understand his sentiment or trying to move on himself, I have bad news for you, Coach. You're going to hear about this game for the rest of your life.
Chapter 2: How does Ben Johnson plan to avoid complacency in 2026?
Because it was the Green Bay Packers, and it was the first playoff win in 15 years. And I do think that the head coach definitely needs to move forward because we've talked a lot about what he wants to improve on. But you can't escape that win. You just won't be able to. Until you get more in the playoffs, this is where you are.
So I'm sorry, but people are going to keep bugging you about this and talking to you about you making them happy about the Bears for the first time in a very long time.
As the Bears reporter, I will keep that in mind with my lines of questioning to Ben Johnson out at Hallis Hall. But to Layla's point, I'll talk about a winning Bears season whenever I damn well please on this microphone. However, and I have done this many, many times, I've gone through the list of Bears winning seasons, which most of the time, most of the time in Bears history are followed by
directly by, as Marshall is doing, the drop-off-the-table sign language there. It goes off the table. 2018, my last example, and you guys know how fond I was of the 2018 season. It dropped off the table in 2019 and subsequently for that entire Matt Nagy regime, except for the one weird-ass 500 playoff game against the New Orleans Saints. Doesn't count. Doesn't count. That's fine.
I am not going to argue that.
The gas leaky.
But if that's the message to the players and to the coaches, then guess what? I am great with it because it sucks when you have so much hope after a winning season and then it's like, what happened? Where did it go? We're in the 6-3 loss to the Green Bay Packers on opening night after the 2018 season. No!
So good for Ben Johnson, but bad for Ben Johnson because we'll continue to talk about winning seasons here on The Score.
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Chapter 3: What are the fans' reactions to the Bears' playoff win?
There is a former SCORE employee who said that she got to serve Ben Johnson last week, and she posted Jenna Duddleston on her Instagram, and she said at the very end, she waited until the end, but she said, thank you for making me happy as a Bears fan and having the most fun I've had watching football in years. And you know what?
It's been past a week, and I think Jenna should be allowed to have that conversation with Ben Johnson. So, yeah, as the media will comply, because that's typically what we do. It's diplomacy and whatnot. But he's going to hear about it from fans for eternity.
Yeah. He did a good thing for everybody.
Okay. But I think his point that we need to focus on, what you just talked about, Mark. He understands what happens next and what could happen next, right? You either get better or you get worse. There is no in between when we're talking about forward progress for a football team. No, that double entendre was not intended. I did not mean to be punny when I said that.
But when he says, quote unquote, hypervigilant. Here's the point, he's making sure everybody in his organization understands that was nice, but it's certainly not good enough, it's not up to my standard, and they have to get better in 2026 just to hold onto their current place as the kings of the NFC North. I think if we don't take what he says here and apply it to the grand scheme of things.
And I get it. Chicago's happy for the first time in a long time about what happened over the course of a football season. But his point is the one that you guys really need to take in.
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Chapter 4: Why is Ben Johnson focused on moving forward rather than dwelling on past successes?
And that is the fact that I don't care anymore about 2025 because it's over and done. All I care about is the present, a.k.a. the future, which is what's next. I mean, I get it. That's what I was saying. But fans are not going to comply with that. And I think that's fine if fans don't, quote-unquote, comply.
Yeah, there's two parts to this, right? I mean, we're always going to talk about it, but he should give a different message to the locker room, which he's doing.
Yeah, and I think he doesn't want players to Uncle Rico this and be like, well, if I had been put in the state title game in 1992. then we wouldn't have lost. He doesn't want players to be like, oh, well, remember that hot playoff game I had? Yeah, no, that's not going to count next season. And I'm going to point the finger at the head coach and the GM as well.
I think there was a lot of, you remember 2018?
finger guns well yeah yeah we do we also remember how you guys didn't answer at all after that and how how you didn't even respond to the adjustments that were made in the playoff loss that year so yeah i expect my head coach to adjust i'm thinking about steak right now you know why i'm thinking about steak because you've just mentioned uncle rico didn't uncle rico eat steak every day there was a lot of steak consumed on napoleon dynamite except by tina the llama who ate ham
And tots in your pockets. That was a big thing. Steak and tots. Yeah. Steak dinner, boom. Is that what I just heard? Steak dinner, boom. I do think that there is a contrast to point out here, but it is perhaps on the part of the head coach not wanting this to be the basis and wanting to move forward himself. And Mark, you know...
You know that players and Bears fans were not the only ones talking about 2018. You know that the guy who was named the coach of the year and the GM who was named the executive of the year did a lot of that previously, too.
Well, yeah, because the only problem that they had was a kicker. That was it. It was all Cody Parker.
According to them.
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Chapter 5: What challenges does Ben Johnson face in maintaining team performance?
caleb williams as great as he was in the second half of the season he's got to be better this year so it's it's going to be a bit of a grind for the bears this year and every year well and you mentioned when when ben johnson knew about drew dolman and you said at that point he didn't know well guess what thanks to today we now do have an understanding of when he found out about drew dolman's retirement
mid-February that he reached out just where he was at and what he wanted to do and so I know Ryan and I are very appreciative for him letting us know as early as he did just where he was leaning and
you know at that point it felt it felt like he'd given this a lot of thought and there was no no really turning this thing around and so um very respectful for that and just the process that he took and to come to his conclusion i don't want to speak for him but he's got a lot of reasons why he decided to do what he did but um you know i couldn't be more grateful than to have
my first year as a head coach with him because i really value that position highly um we put a lot on his plate mentally physically and he answered that bell he's a big reason why we're able to get the the plane off the ground last year and so uh we'll forever be grateful for him can the plane stay in the air that's my question it's off the ground sure but now you need to know that what you've decided to do in lieu of drew dalman can help you keep that plane in the air
Well, and he's positive about Garrett Bradbury, and we needed to hear what he thought about that position as well, understanding his influence in getting Drew Dallman here.
So it was mid-February when they supposedly found out, that Ben Johnson found out. It was March 3rd that it was announced. So they did have some... Dallman did do the Bears the courtesy of telling them early on, and somehow, someway, it was kept...
under wraps and kept a secret until March 3rd when you two, I don't believe I was here, but you two heard that shocking news that the Bears All-Pro Center was no longer with the team. So that's a challenge right there.
Oh yeah, found out on air. That still remains one of the more shocking days I've had in this job. You just don't see that coming. We almost didn't believe it. We looked at each other like, wait, are we reading this right? And Ray was telling us in our ear while we were listening to the White Sox talk about International Women's Day. It was nice. They were trying to give flowers to people.
One of the Sox tried to holler at Dua Lipa.
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Chapter 6: How does Ben Johnson view the team's future and player improvements?
Just put it on the list.
Frank.
Sometimes you know how the thing that percolates is not the main thing, and then you find out later there's other things.
Percolate? Is it time for the Percolator? It is not time for the Percolator.
We don't have time for the Percolator. On Friday and Saturday, we will Percolate away.
What do you mean we don't have time for the Percolator? That's ridiculous, Marshall.
I was going to say, is it the first line of that? It's time for the Percolator? It is. Also on the newly created Grody Distraction Meter, we have reached 100%. Here we are. Distracted. Percolator. So Ben Johnson did talk about Garrett Bradbury, and I needed to hear him talk about his new center, too.
We went through a whole process with Ryan and his crew. And then, of course, Dan Rochard and Kyle Devan had a heavy say in it as well, just in terms of evaluating what the replacements were going to look like. And so we came to consensus that Garrett was going to fit us like a glove. Obviously, he had a lot of success last year, made it to the Super Bowl. Very cerebral player.
Joe Tooney knows him really well, so there's some natural chemistry that I think we're going to have on the inside. He's going to fit what we like to do in the run game with our wide zone, running off the football. When we watched it, we felt really good about what he did in pass pro as well.
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Chapter 7: What impact does the draft have on the Bears' roster decisions?
I think the Bears could afford to have DeAndre Swift as their starting running back again this year for sure. But I certainly wouldn't rule out running back in this draft.
I think that that is fair, given that we know how they were last year. You're right. They go from Ashton Genting talk to end up not drafting him back until the seventh round.
Well, and they tried to get Travion Henderson, too.
That, too. And we saw them pivot in a perhaps, I think, unexpected way. So that changed things as well. That was a Weider article. Your partner did that one for the Chicago Tribune. That stays on my reading list.
Yeah, Weidman.
Yeah, thank you.
Weidman, Weidman.
Thanks to him for hooking us up with the sound today.
We shall be recording an edition of the Take the North podcast early evening tonight is one that should drop for you Take the North fans out there. That's right.
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