The Chicago Bears made a huge splash this offseason by hiring former Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson to be their new head coach. Johnson, who called the plays for a Lions offense that led the league in total yards the last two seasons, was the hottest name on the coaching carousel this cycle. He’s expected to work with former No. 1 overall pick quarterback Caleb Williams to achieve his potential, and with an offense that is already loaded with talent at the skill positions, Bears fans have been exploding with excitement.
Dan Katz, better known as “Big Cat” from Barstool Sports, joined Nick Kostos and Femi Abebefe on You Better You Bet to talk about his Bears and how he feels about their recent coaching hire.
“So I have made a promise to myself on Pardon My Take and I am going to keep it on every show I ever go on, that I am going to stay 6/10 excited, even if you put a water gun to my head I’m 100 million out of 10 excited for Ben Johnson,” said Katz. “The Bears just have to show it on the field before I can start saying reckless things again, because last summer I said some reckless things.”
Kostos chimed in and asked Katz what were some of the reckless things he said the previous summer about Chicago.
“Well, I said no No. 1 pick has ever walked into a better situation and all of this stuff, just really bad things and really dumb things. So I am taking an approach where I am sick of winning the offseason. I wanted Ben Johnson and I think it is a very good hire.”
Katz then got into ripping the Bears incompetent ownership, and how no matter what they do, it is hard to trust that they made the right decision.
“More than anything, I think people maybe don’t understand how the Chicago Bears work. They have a very cheap ownership group. The McCaskey family bought the Chicago Bears for $100 over 100 years ago and became the charter franchise, and that is all the money they have is in the Bears. They are not like some of these others, like David Tepper who obviously isn’t doing great in Carolina, but they don’t have money outside of the Bears.”
However, Katz says that the actual hiring of Ben Johnson shows that it isn’t impossible that ownership has finally changed.
“Them paying Ben Johnson $14 million or whatever number it ends up being, is a real big change for them organizationally. They don’t do that, that is very uncomfortable for George McCaskey and the McCaskey family, so I do have a little bit of optimism that things are changing a little bit. But again, I have to see it on the field, and I am sick of just winning the offseason.”
Barstool Big Cat and myself are 100% in agreement. As a Bears fan, I have learned to never trust this team to ever do the right thing. How many times have we had to get our hopes up just for them to be crushed? The Jay Cutler trade, getting Brandon Marshall, drafting Mitch Trubisky, hiring Matt Nagy, Justin Fields falling in the draft. Then we were promised generational things last year with Williams, but incompetence at head coach derailed it.
I will never get my hopes up for the Bears until they give me a real reason to by winning football games, and playoff games for that matter.