LAKE FOREST, Ill. (670 The Score) — Before the Bears and Dolphins held their joint practice Friday at Halas Hall, their respective head coaches met along the sideline.
Bears first-year head coach Ben Johnson has a different look and style from Dolphins fourth-year head coach Mike McDaniel. Johnson brims with intensity, while McDaniel wears his laidback personality on his rolled-up sleeves.
Aside from their job titles, Johnson and McDaniel don’t share much in common. But there’s a healthy respect from McDaniel as he watches Johnson prepare for his first season leading the Bears.
“I have the highest regard for him as a football coach,” McDaniel said of Johnson. “Offensive football is made to have kind of an attack-like pretense to it. He attacks all the time. He’s innovative and puts his players in positions to succeed, which I think is the nameplate – head coach, you should be able to do that for players.
“I feel super old talking to him about, ‘Well, when I was in Year 1.’ But it’s a real conversation, just because you’re navigating waters that you’ve seen, but you’ve been in the boat on the side of the waters. You haven’t been in the waters totally the way you are as a head coach. So, I know he’s going to do phenomenal job.”
Johnson, 39, was hired by the Bears in January largely because of his background in building a prolific offense and developing a quarterback in Detroit. In Chicago, he has paired with 23-year-old Caleb Williams, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.
Williams had an inconsistent rookie campaign while dealing with instability around him in 2024. During it, Williams spoke of his desire to be challenged. That’s where Johnson comes into play.
Johnson and his Bears coaching staff have tested Williams in training camp. McDaniel was in the same position in 2022 as he stepped in to work with quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who at the time was entering his third NFL season.
Tagovailoa enjoyed a breakthrough first season alongside McDaniel. A year later, he led the NFL in passing and earned Pro Bowl honors. The Dolphins led the NFL in total offense in 2023, Tagovailoa’s lone fully healthy season.
Johnson has followed McDaniel's work in Miami.
“I've always respected him from afar,” Johnson said. “When he was in San Francisco to now Miami, some of the stuff, in particular the run game, it's next level. There's no one else that does it quite like he does. He finds a way to find space to the inside and perimeter runs. He can gash teams that way. He is a little bit of that mad scientist. There's a lot of respect there just from a schematic standpoint. I know they've got a good one there."
About ten years ago, McDaniel went to work as a coach with the Quarterback Collective and encountered a determined 14-year-old quarterback. That was Williams, who was a promising high school prospect with lofty aspirations.
McDaniel quickly came to appreciate how Williams went about his work and followed his career from Gonzaga Prep to the college ranks at Oklahoma and USC and now Chicago.
From three seasons with Tagovailoa, McDaniel knows well that developing a quarterback is a careful process.
“The main thing is that the two individual parties, with the proper intent, go through stuff together,” McDaniel said. “So, like, quite honestly to get to the spot you need to, Caleb is going to be challenged and then by nature, your true intent of how you’re coaching and what your motivations are do come through when you go through stuff together. But you have to create the relationship that you want. You have to really care, have competitiveness, accountability and you’re probably going to have to get into some fights.
“As a 14-year-old, he was super talented and super cerebral. He was position-focused and technique-focused, which is super rare for a guy of his talent. And then fast forward to I had my eye on him when he was a freshman at Oklahoma, watched him at USC and did incredible things on the football field with the whole world watching. So, there was a guy that knows how to live within expectations like you have to do as a franchise quarterback, has the capability and he’s been working to improve his game for a long time."
Following their teams' 24-24 tie in preseason action at Soldier Field on Sunday, Johnson and McDaniel shook hands once more before going their separate ways. Johnson is entering a first season in which he’s asked to foster Williams’ growth, while McDaniel faces pressure to win in his fourth year in his position.
They'll each be following the other’s 2025 season closely, admiring from afar and hoping for success.
“I’m looking forward to our relationship continuing to grow,” Johnson said.
Chris Emma covers the Bears, Chicago’s sports scene and more for 670TheScore.com. Follow him on Twitter @CEmma670.