(670 The Score) When the 2025 season kicks off, Pro Bowl cornerback Jaylon Johnson will play for his third full-time Bears head coach since he was selected in the 2020 NFL Draft.
Johnson’s tenure with the Bears has been marked by instability at the top of the organization. He was drafted to a team led by then-coach Matt Nagy, then settled in for three seasons with coach Matt Eberflus, who was fired this past Nov. 29.
Now, as the Bears have begun their search for a new head coach, Johnson isn’t drawn to any particular names on the list. He just wants to have success after the Bears went 5-12 in the 2024 season.
“Every team is different,” Johnson said. “Strong leaders look different in different environments. With a situation like this, things are changing, things are evolving, I don't know what the right combination is. But we definitely need that leadership for guys to fall under. I think for me, it always starts with the man at the top. I look at our team as a house – we need a man of the house to step up, to guide us, to lead us. Of course, everybody is responsible for their own roles they play in the house.
“It starts with the head. I’m not going to sit here and say, ‘Oh, (Eberflus) wasn’t the right guy.’ At the end of the day, maybe it wasn’t the right fit for the right time or the players that we had, whatever it was. You go back three years when he first got the job and the HITS principle came in, all the Bears fans were like, ‘Yeah, this is what we need. This is what we need.’ But it’s like, everybody is going to jump on the bandwagon of what they feel like we need, and then, ‘Oh, yeah, we’re good. This is going to be our year.’ To me, it’s the same thing every year when somebody gets a new coach. ‘Yeah, this is the guy we need. He’s going to change it all around’ – you don’t really know.
“I’ve been through it, seen it. At the end of the day, I don't really care who gets brought in. I’ll wait to see the results. That’s what I care about, is the results. I mean, whoever it may be. Some people want it to be Mike (Vrabel), some people want it to be Ben (Johnson). I mean, everybody has their opinions on who it should be. At the end of the day, I care about results.”
The Bears’ search picked up Monday as they put in formal requests to interview a number of candidates from around the NFL.