Bears coach Ben Johnson might sneer at rivals like Matt LaFleur and chuckle at predecessor Matt Eberflus, but he knows when he’s tangling with an equal.
More than an equal, actually, in this case. When the Bears host the Rams on Sunday in the divisional round of the playoffs, Johnson will be up against the best coach in the game in Sean McVay.
Johnson doesn’t keep power rankings of his peers, but McVay’s credentials are undeniable. He has the Rams in the playoffs for the seventh time in his nine seasons after taking over a team that had been mediocre or worse for more than a decade. He has gone to the Super Bowl with two different quarterbacks, winning one with Matt Stafford, and has a sparkling 101-62 career record.
When the Bears hired Johnson a year ago, their highest hope was that he’d become their McVay.
“It’s hard to gauge who’s best and who’s worst when it comes to coaching, but there’s no question about it he’s in the upper echelon,” Johnson said Monday. “All of his teams are well prepared. There’s no doubt that he’s super sharp on the offensive side, but how he does it as a head coach, bringing all three phases together, is really critical to their success. He knows how to speak to the team and get the most out of them.
“There’s a reason why they’re in it damn near every year since he’s been there.”
As meteoric as Johnson’s rise from “snot-nosed computer punk,” as Lions coach Dan Campbell lovingly called him, to Coach of the Year candidate has been, McVay has done exponentially more. And they’re both 39.
Much like the Bears’ turnaround under Johnson, McVay flipped the Rams from 4-12 the season before his arrival to 11-5 with the No. 1 scoring offense and in the playoffs in his debut season in 2017. They went to the Super Bowl the next season.
When it became apparent to McVay that he needed a better quarterback than Jared Goff if he wanted to chase championships, the Rams went all in by trading Goff and two first-round draft picks to the Lions for Stafford in 2021.
They won the Super Bowl that season and, aside from a lapse the next season, have been a perennial threat.
Johnson and McVay are linked through Goff and Stafford. Johnson was an assistant with the Lions for two seasons with Stafford, then partnered with Goff to launch their offense to the top of the league before leaving to coach the Bears and start from scratch with young quarterback Caleb Williams.
As McVay looks for his third Super Bowl trip, his team is as good as they get.
The Rams started 11-3 before slipping against the Seahawks and Falcons and finished first in the league in scoring (30.5 points per game) and total offense (394.6 yards). Stafford is playing better than ever, and their rushing attack was sixth at 4.6 yards per carry. They also allowed the 10th-fewest points per game at 20.4.
All of that firepower is in the hands of a master strategist, too. While Johnson has regularly outfoxed opposing coaches this season, it’s difficult to imagine anyone getting the better of McVay in that regard.
“It’s just the way it is in the playoffs: Once you get to Round 2, Round 3, there are no weak links,” Johnson said. “I’ve got nothing but respect for the opponent this week because they’re damn good.”
Not only is McVay an exceptional offensive play-caller and game manager, but he also gives the Rams a better chance of decoding Johnson’s offense.
Nonetheless, he won’t take his rookie counterpart lightly. McVay’s book on Johnson goes back to his start as Lions offensive coordinator in 2022 and has seen “a true understanding of what defenses are doing” in his play designs.
“What shows his flexibility is the ability to have one of the best offenses with a player like Jared who’s really special and then being able to have some similar foundational principles with Caleb, but also be able to accentuate the things that make him really unique,” McVay said Monday. “He’s got a timely feel for wanting to be able to mix in some things.”
McVay specifically highlighted Williams’ winning touchdown pass to DJ Moore against the Packers. The Bears replicated the appearance of a screen pass they’d thrown to Luther Burden early in the game, the Packers bit, and Moore raced freely to the end zone.
McVay also has the advantage of continuity, while Johnson is in his first season running a staff that has several assistants with whom he hadn’t worked. Offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur, Matt’s younger brother, is in his third season with McVay, and defensive coordinator Chris Shula has been on staff McVay’s full tenure.
Coaching has been one of the Bears’ biggest advantages this season, a total reversal of last season under Eberflus, but he’s unlikely to have the edge on McVay at this stage. This is a step up, and Johnson has something to prove Sunday.
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