Ben Johnson pulled off his shirt and flexed like a body builder as players screamed and chanted in the locker room after the Chicago Bears beat the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.
The viral celebration sure turned some heads. The coach’s young daughter even had something to say about it.
“My 2-year-old was watching the TV screen back at home. She’s pointing at the screen, ‘No shirt, no shirt.’ My wife had no idea what was going on,” Johnson said Monday. “That’s about how it went. I think anytime you get a chance to feed the city, you want to do it. So, man of the people.”
With his infectious energy and a mounting pile of wins, Johnson is endearing himself to the people of Chicago in his first season as a head coach. The Bears (9-3) not only lead the NFC North, they hold the top spot in the conference. They’ve won five straight and nine of 10, and they’ll try to keep it going when they visit rival Green Bay (8-3-1) on Sunday in a matchup of the top two teams in the division.
A 24-15 victory at Philadelphia on Friday came with a bonus: free hot dogs. In October, the Wiener’s Circle on Chicago’s North Side offered free hot dogs if Johnson took his shirt off following a Bears win. Johnson decided Friday was the right time to do it, and the well-known stand will be handing them out Tuesday. The Wiener’s Circle had a similar giveaway in September after Caleb Williams threw four touchdowns in a Week 3 win over Dallas.
“I figured the sooner the better because I’m not in the weight room very much anymore so this thing keeps getting a little bit worse as we go along in the season,” Johnson said. “It was good. I hate to draw attention away from our players but the intent was to bring up the city of Chicago and hopefully it gave them a little excitement because they’re a big part of this journey as we’re going through the season, also.”
There’s no shortage of excitement in Chicago. In the span of a year, the Bears went from firing former coach Matt Eberflus the day after an embarrassing Thanksgiving loss at Detroit, to taking out the defending champions on the road on Black Friday.
They’ve gone from finishing last in the division to securing a winning season with five games remaining. Chicago hasn’t finished above .500 since the 2018 team won the NFC North at 12-4. And with Carolina beating Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams (9-3), the Bears moved into the top spot in the NFC.
“The significance of it at the moment isn’t much,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “Look, I know how this all is. We’re on the so-called mountain top right now, but those things change quickly week to week. We felt that after the Baltimore week and you could feel that after the first two weeks of the season.”
Chicago let an 11-point lead slip away in a season-opening loss to Minnesota and got blown out the following week at Detroit. The only loss since then was in Week 8 at Baltimore.
Johnson figures teams will need 11 wins to make the playoffs so he wasn’t getting too caught up in holding the No. 1 seed at the moment. “We have not been guaranteed a spot in the tournament yet,” he said. “We have to earn that right.”
Against Philadelphia, Chicago had two players top 100 yards rushing in a game for the first time since Walter Payton and Matt Suhey on Nov. 10, 1985, against Detroit, with Kyle Monangai running for 130 yards and D’Andre Swift going for 125. The defense added two more takeaways to its league-leading total of 26, with Kevin Byard’s NFL-best sixth interception and Nahshon Wright’s forced fumble and recovery of Jalen Hurts’ tush-push attempt.
The passing game remains an area needing work. Caleb Williams completed a season-low 47.2% (17 of 36), the fifth straight game he’s been below 60%. He’s been hurt in some games by dropped passes, and against Philadelphia, receivers lost their footing a few times on well-placed throws.
“Everybody’s got a role to play to get this pass game cleaned up,” Johnson said. “We’re winning in spite of our passing game, not because of it, and none of us are pleased with that right now.
