Brick by Brick: Ben Johnson begins building Bears’ new identity

Ariana Pensy · Correspondent · 3 hours ago

CHICAGO - Coming to the Chicago Bears, the head coach had a lot of building to do, given the incredibly young roster, a largely unimpressive rookie class, including starting quarterback Caleb Williams, and implementing his own offensive scheme.

That is why fundamentals will be important for the Bears during this training camp and beyond.

“We’re looking not only to master our fundamentals over the next couple weeks, but also execute the playbook and really bring it to life. We’ll work heavily on situational football as well,” Johnson said. “Going into camp, it’s going to be a lot here early on. These first two weeks, we’re still going to do a lot and it’s not so much to attack the defense or anything like that. We got to find out who we are and I’m going beyond just the quarterback here. I don’t know if we’re going to be a wide zone team up front. I don’t know if we’re going to be a gap team yet. There’s a lot of things that got to play out and we won’t know until we get the pads on.”

From last year to this year, a lot has changed on the roster. The offensive line is almost entirely new. Who will be playing at left tackle is certainly in question as Braxton Jones, Kiran Amegadjie, and Ozzy Trapilo compete for the job. Tyson Bagent and Case Keenum will be competing for the backup quarterback role.

With all of the talent on this roster, there is a lot of potential although Johnson also realizes there will be bumps and mistakes along the way.

“There’s a lot of talent on the roster. Looking forward to seeing what leaders come out of the locker room and really lead the charge this year for us going into the fall. The focus for us is going to be on continuous improvement (for) the next six weeks. That’s all we care about is getting a little bit better. Every single day, day by day, brick by brick,” Johnson said. “There’s going to be bumps. There’s going to be ups. There’s going to be downs. It’s easy to have a bad day or two and go ahead and get all panicky. That’s not going to be us … There’s certain benchmarks along the way. The first couple weeks, it’s going to be a big installation. So, the guys are going to be thinking. Mistakes are going to be made. I think a lot come out of these joint practices that we have against (the) Miami (Dolphins) and Buffalo (Bills) will be a good barometer to see where we’re at as a team. The preseason games, all these teams will be really good for us to gauge where we’re at as well.”

Chicago’s first preseason game will be against Miami on Sun. Aug. 10 (Noon / FOX) followed by their second preseason game on Sun. Aug. 17 (7 p.m. / FOX). Both of these games are at home, followed by their final preseason game on the road against the Kansas City Chiefs on Fri. Aug. 22 (7:20 p.m. / FOX).

With the Bears getting the opportunity to have joint practice against both of these talented teams, the starters may not play as much this preseason as Johnson places a lot of weight on the joint practices.

“I’m going to take a lot of weight into these joint practices,” Johnson said. “That’s our initial plan and we’ll see how much we play guys over the course of the preseason games.”

Since many of the staff members and numerous players are new to the team, the Bears are still figuring out their identity as a team. However, there are some things Johnson already knows he wants to see on both sides of the ball.

He has emphasized being physical and explosive since becoming Chicago’s head coach and is also emphasizing that during training camp as part of Chicago’s identity this season.

“Offensively, we talk about being explosive, being detailed. On defense, we do want to press on the outside. We want to challenge. We want to stop the run with shell. There are a number of things that we talk about on offense and on defense, and as a team, we want to be physical. We want to be poised,” Johnson said. There are things that we want, but it all comes together over the course of camp, and so that’s why this time is so important, because those guys are really the ones driving that ship.”