Bill Johanesen
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From ESPN:
I think ... Ben Johnson is Brian Flores' kryptonite
Two heinous crimes were committed Sunday by two of football nerddom's favorite coaches.
Let's start with Johnson. The Bears scored 59 points against the Panthers, which is like if you scored 50 points, and then decided to score nine more points. Both running backs D'Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai reached 100 yards and scored two touchdowns, and quarterback Caleb Williams added another two scores on scrambles of his own. And for those tracking Williams' accuracy metrics: 72.4% completion percentage with an off-target rate of only 13.8%.
Everything worked for the Bears' offense, which barely left first gear against the Panthers. The Bears will face far stiffer competition in Week 2 against the Vikings and Flores, who rendered an unbelievable performance against the Packers in Week 1.
The Vikings blitzed Jordan Love on 73.8% of his dropbacks Sunday -- the highest rate at which any quarterback has been blitzed since the 2023 season. The Packers were in a difficult position entering the game; starting left guard Aaron Banks was hurt, and the camp campaign to build up Anthony Belton at the starting right guard spot was abandoned late in the process. The Packers fielded 2024 fifth-round pick Jacob Monk at right guard and 2024 undrafted free agent Donovan Jennings at left guard. It was Jennings' first career start and Monk's second.
In an effort to insulate the young guards, the Packers kept more players in to block than basically any offense over the past few seasons. Love had three or fewer receivers in the route concept on an astonishing 15 dropbacks. Only three quarterbacks have had more such dropbacks over the past five seasons.
Flores has little interest in occupying those routes with multiple defenders -- he'd rather throw bodies against the wall of your pass protection and find a weak point. Like water against a dam, it didn't really matter how many players the Packers kept in to protect -- if there was a weak point (which there often was), Flores had a rusher in that spot. His distinctive approach to early-down blitzing breaks the rules. It forces opposing offenses to play a different sport than the one for which they're prepared against other opponents.
But Johnson knows Flores well. He called offense against him as the coordinator of the Lions -- twice in 2023, twice in 2024 -- then picked up another two games in 2025 as the head coach of the Bears. Across six matchups, Johnson's team is 5-1 -- the only loss was last season's opener and Williams' first start in Johnson's offense. Over those six games, Johnson's offense doesn't look like a 59-point monster ... but it's clearly better than the average offense against the marauding Vikings coordinator.
Offenses vs. Flores' defense, 2023-26
All teams Johnson's teams
(Six games)
EPA per play minus-0.04 0.07
Success rate 41.8% 45.9%
Points per drive 1.77 2.32
Explosive pass
rate 12.7% 15.3%
First down +
touchdown rate 27.8% 36.9%
So what does Johnson do that other teams can't replicate? A few things stick out. The first is communication. Flores' defense requires as much pre-snap coordination between 11 players as any in football -- that's why Harrison Smith is back and so valuable. He can be the coach on the field, changing the playcall after the defense sees the formation.
Johnson rises to meet Flores. His offense is as communication-heavy as any in the league, and his group is empowered to make adjustments based on what it sees. Flores wants to get opposing offenses stuck in a bad protection look or run call; Johnson's groups are elite at getting out of such sticky wickets. Williams' pre-snap command, which has reportedly taken big strides through Year 1 and into Year 2 with Johnson, will be tested here.
To challenge Flores' reliance on communication, Johnson will randomly snap the football quickly -- no motion, no checking. Immediate snaps. The Bears had 19 quick snaps against the Vikings in Week 11 -- snaps in which less than two seconds elapse between the line getting set and the ball being snapped. It was the most they had in any game last season, according to NFL Next Gen Stats. Second most? The 17 such snaps in Week 1 ... also against Flores.
The second thing that sticks out is formational. The Lions loved condensed sets under Johnson, and the Bears have continued that approach. Condensed sets are typically a bad idea against blitz-heavy teams. When you spread out the field, it's easier to identify suspicious defensive alignment that reveals who's blitzing from where. Against Flores and the Vikings, there's no point in trying to riddle things out -- the blitzes are too frequent and too varied. You'll think you're right, you'll actually be wrong, and then you'll be dead in the water.
So Johnson turns into the skid. He gets as condensed as possible against Flores. In 2025, no offense had more condensed formations in any game than the Bears in Week 11 against the Vikings, with an average formational width of only 17.7 yards. Teeny tiny formations allow Johnson to throw the ball on out-breakers into a ton of space, to stress the Vikings' cornerbacks who are typically insulated by trap coverages and quick throws. It also allows Johnson to meet Flores' duplicity and disguise with the beautiful simplicity of the running game. With lighter players such as Joshua Metellus and Dallas Turner on the edge against double-teams from extra tight ends and condensed wide receivers, the Bears can grind out physical yardage and set up the play-action pass.
Does Flores have an answer to this approach? Yes ... but not on the chalkboard. The Vikings' first three picks in the 2026 draft were trench picks: defensive tackle Caleb Banks in the first round, on/off-ball linebacker hybrid Jake Golday in the second round and another defensive tackle in the third round in space-gobbler Domonique Orange. Any defense that plays in a division with the Bears needs to be serious about its run defense -- doubly true for Flores, who will never get to third-and-long against Chicago unless he has some run-stuffing hog mollies up front to slow down Swift and Monangai.
Johnson won Assistant Coach of the Year in 2024. Second place in voting was Flores. When Flores was a young defensive assistant cutting his teeth in New England, Johnson was doing the same in Miami on offense -- twice a year, they saw each other. These two have circled their matchups like heavyweight fighters for years now, and on Sunday, we get another 90-minute dance in the ring. Bring your popcorn.
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