Chicago Bears defensive star ‘does not care’ who the next head coach is as long as they bring winning with them

The Chicago Bears have requested to interview a plethora of candidates for the head coaching vacancy this offseason, which has generated mixed reactions from the fan base. There are a few names that they love and a few that have left them scratching their heads.

Thomas Brown guided the team in the last five weeks of the season following the firing of Matt Eberflus in late-November. While the Chicago Bears went 1-4 in Brown’s interim tenure, the front office learned a lot about how things could operate differently with a new type of leader in the locker room.

Jaylon Johnson was one of the team captains in 2024z He recently come out and spoke on the hiring cycle that the organization is about to endure in pursuit of finding the next leader of the franchise.

Chicago Bears star defensive back Jaylon Johnson had something to say about the upcoming hire

In an appearance on 670 The Score, Johnson made his feelings known on what the front office needs to do with this hire to best equip the team entering the 2025 season. Johnson touched on where things truly start with a team in the locker room and what he is looking for in the next head coach at the end of the day.

“It starts with the head,” Johnson said. I’m not going to sit here and say, ‘Oh, (Eberflus) wasn’t the right guy.’ At the end of the day, maybe it wasn’t the right fit for the right time or the players that we had, whatever it was. You go back three years when he first got the job and the HITS principle came in, all the Bears fans were like, ‘Yeah, this is what we need. This is what we need.

“But it’s like, everybody is going to jump on the bandwagon of what they feel like we need, and then, ‘Oh, yeah, we’re good. This is going to be our year.’ To me, it’s the same thing every year when somebody gets a new coach. ‘Yeah, this is the guy we need. He’s going to change it all around’ – you don’t really know.

The famous HITS principle from Eberflus was on that quickly became a laughing stock for Chicago Bears fans everywhere. The two and a half year tenure for the former Colts defensive coordinator did not go as planned and the front office sits three years after the hire looking for the right answer.

Johnson doesn’t necessarily have a preference on a specific option in this interview process, but he does have one big thing in mind with whoever the hire is.

“I’ve been through it, seen it,” Johnson said. “At the end of the day, I don’t really care who gets brought in. I’ll wait to see the results. That’s what I care about, is the results. I mean, whoever it may be. Some people want it to be Mike (Vrabel), some people want it to be Ben (Johnson). I mean, everybody has their opinions on who it should be. At the end of the day, I care about results.”

The results are what should trump all when it comes to this hire. This is the biggest head coaching search in franchise history and it should without a doubt be treated as such.

The first big interview that will be conducted on Wednesday by the Chicago Bears front office is of former Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel.