Bears' Ben Johnson stumbled in his head coaching debut, yes, but so did his players

So as first days on the new job" go, it'd be tough to top Ben Johnson's for sheer agony. Getting booed off the field in your debut after coughing up a double-digit lead isn't exactly the way you want to introduce yourself to your new employers and customers.

Social media and sports talk radio are jockeying for position atop the ropes, lining up to elbow-drop the entire Bears organization, and Johnson in particular, for their utter collapse Monday night against Minnesota.

Not to buck the tide of popular Chicago opinion, but how fair, exactly, is the criticism of Johnson? Let's dive in ... just make sure your helmet is strapped on tight. There's going to be hitting.

The challenging challenge call

Although the final two minutes drew the most heat on Johnson, his real error came about 20 game minutes earlier, when he decided to challenge a T.J. Hockenson fumble-that-wasn't. Halfway through the third quarter, Hockenson caught a short pass, rolled, and then had the ball punched out of his grasp.

Hockenson gets the ball punched out as he is down on the ground. Ben Johnson and the Bears have challenged the call saying this should be a fumble. pic.twitter.com/ZDFLf7Mu7m

- Rate the Refs (@Rate_the_Refs) September 9, 2025

He appeared, in both the moment and on replay, to have been down, but Johnson challenged the call anyway ... and lost a timeout for his unfortunate gamble.

This would prove to be highly significant later in the game. It was too high of a risk to take when Minnesota was on its own 23 and still struggling to move the ball, even if it seemed like a low-cost gamble. That's a mistake Johnson won't make again.

Caleb Williams: Good until he wasn't

This is where Johnson is in a play the cards you're dealt" situation. Caleb Williams wasn't going anywhere when Johnson arrived, and through the first few series, it sure looked like the new regime had done wonders for Williams' touch and confidence. Williams connected on every pass through the first quarter-and-a-half, but when he started missing, he missed bad:

How did Caleb Williams miss Dj Moore by this much .. it might be time to have some conversations pic.twitter.com/0tML5sny1O

- John (@iam_johnw) September 9, 2025

That airball in the direction of D.J. Moore came late in the fourth, when Chicago was driving down 10 points. The Bears would go on to score 30 seconds later anyway, but no one knew that would happen at the time. A coach is only as good as his players' execution, and when a player executes that badly, the stench sticks to the coach, too.

Worth noting: The play began with 2:32 on the clock, meaning that if Moore scored - as it seemed he would have easily with an on-target ball - the Bears would have kept the benefit of the 2-minute warning, rendering the final kick debate (more on that next) moot.

The final kick: Coaching or execution?

After Williams hit Rome Odunze for a short touchdown, the Bears trailed 27-24 with 2:02 left on the clock. And here's where the debate over Johnson's strategy really began. If Chicago had been able to three-and-out Minnesota with the two-minute warning in hand, the Bears could have gotten the ball back with just under a minute remaining - not a ton of time, true, but enough to get in position for a long field goal.

Johnson knew this, and told kicker Cairo Santos to kick the ball out the back of the end zone to prevent the clock from moving. Problem is, Santos came up about three yards short, and Minnesota was able to run the ball out, killing enough time to avoid having to run a play before the two-minute warning.

KOC telling Ty Chandler to take the ball out, so that the #Bears didn't have the 2 minute warning on their side.

There's a reason why he was the coach of the year. pic.twitter.com/SWy97MHP0U

- VikingzFanPage (@vikingzfanpage) September 9, 2025

The Bears did in fact force a three-and-out, but only had nine seconds with which to act ... not nearly enough.

So where does the blame go here? Johnson could have told Santos to kick the ball straight out of bounds, which would have only given the Vikings five more yards of field position (starting at their 40 instead of the 35, where the ball is placed after a kickoff through the end zone). On the one hand, is it too much to ask an NFL kicker to boot the ball 75 yards, which is where Santos needed to go? On the other, isn't it Johnson's responsibility to know his kicker's limitations?

After the game, Johnson indicated that he could feel the game slipping away. I think you certainly feel it when you're on the sideline there," he said. You got it moving, got it going, then all of a sudden it starts going backwards." This is where Nicky from Schaumburg calls in with his take that Ditka would've been able to turn that tide all by himself ... and Nicky might not be entirely wrong.

Jumping from a coordinator position to a head coaching role is like swapping a minivan for an F1 ride. There's a dramatic increase in power, and also a dramatic increase in the likelihood you'll flip and trash everything. Johnson showed real promise and creativity in the first three quarters, but it's the final one where games are won and lost. He's got a ways to go to achieve sideline serenity ... and his quarterback hitting the open man every now and then will help, too.

In a bit of perfect narrative scheduling, the Bears travel to Detroit next week to take on Johnson's old employer and head coach. This doesn't yet look like a Bears team that can handle prosperity - or rebound from adversity - and the Lions will dish out plenty of the latter while offering little of the former. Johnson's going to need to get his head and his house in order quickly, or Chicago is looking at yet another deep hole to start yet another season.