Ben Johnson knows what a good football team looks like; he coached one in Detroit. He doesn't yet see one in Chicago: "Our practice habits are yet to reflect a championship-caliber team," Johnson said this week after the Bears were routed last Sunday by the Lions.
When he reviewed the film from Chicago's 52-21 loss at Ford Field, Johnson wasn't pleased with his team's overall effort. Johnson noticed "things all over the tape, in all three phases, that we're looking to clean up."
"I thought as a whole that that team, they played a little bit harder than us. That’s a reflection of me as a coach, that’s a reflection of our coaching staff and it’s a reflection of our players, too," Johnson said. "When you play a good team like that on the road, you gotta be all-out every single snap and that just was not the case. Specifically, it was everybody."
Under Dan Campbell, the Lions practice and play as hard as any team in the NFL. Those are habits that Johnson is trying to instill in the Bears, but it's yet to click.
“We should be going to the football, finishing hard,” he said. "We talk about it all the time with the offensive players that our fundamentals, our finish, and our technique need to show up in walk-through, they need to show up on the practice field. That’s how it shows up on game day.
"Simple things of, how do we properly block? How do we catch the ball? How do we block after the catch? Ball security and things like that. It’s the little things that you learn in youth league football that even at this level, they make a huge difference."