Ben Johnson’s ability to adapt in-game has been invaluable

The Chicago Bears are currently the best team in the NFC right now, with their biggest game of the 2025 season coming up on Sunday in Green Bay against the Packers. Chicago has been success throughout the 2025 season due to a defense that leads the NFL in forcing turnovers, and a top five rushing offense. First-year head coach Ben Johnson, who was hired to install an explosive offensive scheme, had helped lead his team to success through his ability to adapt in-game and determine what the best course of action to help secure wins.

Ben Johnson’s team has won due to his ability to adjust on the fly

When the Bears’ front office hired Ben Johnson at the beginning of the year, the highly sought after offensive coordinator that had acclaimed success in Detroit as a play-caller was brought in to help develop second-year quarterback Caleb Williams and create a successful offense. Through 12 games of the 2025 season, Johnson’s offense is productive when it has come to generating yards, yet has struggled at times to score touchdowns, despite having multiple redzone situations. Additionally, Chicago’s passing offense has been inconsistent, as Williams has struggled with accuracy while pass-catchers have had issues with drops.

Despite the inconsistencies on offense, Johnson has done a tremendous job navigating around those issues, especially during the Bears’ current five-game winning-streak. There have several instances through the winning-streak where Ben Johnson has changed his offensive gameplan and strategy mid-contest to adapt to the flow of what was transpiring to help secure a win. In the victories over Giants, Vikings, and Eagles, the Bears offense and their play-scheming during the course of the contests.

In the game against the New York Giants, Ben Johnson’s gameplan called for higher rate of deep passing-plays, yet several of the Bears’ wide receivers struggled with dropped passes, totaling six during the game. Although Chicago trailed 20-10 midway through the fourth quarter, Johnson adjusted his gameplan to target the most reliable pass-catchers in the moment, as rookies Colston Loveland and Luther Burden III were targeted to help move the ball. Additionally, Williams’ rushing ability was utilized more than his passing capabilities, as the second-year signal-caller scored the game-winning touchdown on a 17-yard quarterback rollout.

Against the Vikings a week later, Johnson’s scheme at the beginning of the contest involved another round of deep passing-plays, yet this time it was William’s accuracy that didn’t allow for the passes to be completed. Although Ben Johnson tried to stick with the passing offense by shifting to more mid-range routes over the middle, drops by DJ Moore and Burden created more stalling issues. With the Bears leading late into the game, the first-year head coach adapted a ball-control and time-consumtion offense, leaning heavily on the rushing offense. Chicago’s head coach even chose to stick with the running game to setup kicker Cairo Santos’ game-winning kick.

On Friday night in Philadelpha, Ben Johnson was able to realize that the passing offense could work off the immense success of the rushing attack, as both D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai each rushed for over 100 yards. Although the passing game struggled again, as there were drops and missed passes due to wide receivers having issue with the field, Johnson called passing-plays off the run game. The key 28-yard touchdown from Williams to tight end Cole Kmet to seal the win came on a play-action fake that the Eagles defense bit on due to the success of the rushing attack.

Ben Johnson must choose the best course of action for Chicago’s offense with upcoming games

With five games remaining in the season, including three divisional contests against two divisional foes who are vying to make the playoffs also, it will be up to Ben Johnson to see how he wants to run his offense. Due to the rushing success of Swift and Monangai, it wouldn’t be surprising if Johnson relies heavily on a run-first offensive scheme, especially if the team is playing in inclement weather in December. Given the play-caller’s fondness for running the ball paired with his immense success with it in Detroit, it wouldn’t be a shock if Chicago wins games relying on their rushing offense and their defense alone.

The other strategy that could be deployed by Ben Johnson over the team’s final five games of 2025 is to lean on the rushing offense to help jumpstart the passing offense through a heavy dose of play-action play-designs. Upcoming opposing defenses could look to stop Chicago’s rushing offense with eight men in the box, which could also Williams to connect on open targets downfield with linebackers and secondary members being frozen when trying to stop a run. Johnson pass play success in Detroit was due in part to relying heavily on play-action plays, especially ones coming off of formations that would lead opposing defense to believe a run play was coming.

It will also be interesting to see how Johnson handles the pressure of his team not just being on the verge of making the playoffs but fight to help secure an invaluable first-round bye and home-field advantage for the playoffs. Chicago’s head coach may just want to stick with what is working the best for his offense to help give the Bears’ enough of chance to win enough games to secure the bye and home-field advantage. Luckily for Ben Johnson, due to his prior experience and success with Detroit, he has playoff experience that will come in handy for the Bears at the beginning of January.

The Bears being successful with the way that they have won games in 2025 was not expected at all by fans and NFL analysts. Ben Johnson has done a tremendous job managing and navigating issues that has plagued his offense throughout the season and has put his offensive unit in a position to overcome inconsistencies. Johnson now must keep the trend of being able to successful adapt during the game over Chicago’s last five contests to help ensure the best possible playoff position for his team.

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