Dancing Ben Johnson shows Bears players 'he’s just one of us'

Ben Johnson had just handed out game balls to three Bears players after their Monday night win in Seattle when Kyler Gordon reached out and slapped a sticker on his coach’s chest.

It was a sticker of Johnson doing the Stanky Legg, a dance craze the coach jump-started the last time the Bears won on Monday night, in Week 3. Deciding to dance after they beat the Eagles was a “panic move,” Johnson said with a smile.

The dance first became popular when GS Boyz released a rap song of the same name in 2008, when Johnson was 22. The video of the coach dancing now accompanies the team’s “Good, Better, Best” social media videos after victories and has inspired everything from T-shirts to the stickers handed to Gordon in Seattle. Johnson had one on slapped his chest by the slot cornerback before he started dancing Monday. He stuck his left leg out, bent at 90 degrees, and slapped his knee with his right hand, causing it to wobble.

What’s remarkable about Johnson letting loose is the contrast between the coach pregame and postgame. In the hours leading up to the kickoff, Johnson walls himself off emotionally. He studies the call sheet, often alone. He doesn’t speak much, even to his own coaching staff. Once the game starts, he wants his coaches speaking on his headset as little as is necessary.

After the game, he’s different.

“It shows everybody that he’s just one of us …” receiver Rome Odunze said. “He wants to be precise, he wants to go out there and execute. But man, this game is about having fun and going out there and winning games. I think, like, that’s his expression of all that. We all feel that, for sure.”

That connection is vital for the first-time head coach. Johnson doesn’t hesitate to yell at his players when things aren’t going the right way. Film sessions can be tough, even after — actually, especially after — the team wins. But he knows he can’t keep his intensity up all the time. Loosening up allows him to connect with his players.

The result has been a resounding success. Johnson entered Sunday night’s home game against the Buccaneers with a chance to, with a win, move past George Halas on the Bears’ all-time winning percentage. It’s a small sample size, but impressive nonetheless.

He entered Sunday’s game needed just three wins the rest of the season to set the Bears’ all-time record for most victories in the first two years of a head coach’s career.

When the Bears hired Johnson, there was no question he knew how to call offensive plays. The bigger issue was how he would act as the head coach, on and off the field. Could he be a leader? Could he inspire? Could he connect?

The answer has been a resounding yes.

Almost every head coaching hire the Bears have ever made has come with the same question. In franchise history, the Bears have hired only two men with previous head coach experience — John Fox and Paddy Driscoll, though the latter had a player-coach stint on his resume.

Every other hire, from the good (Mike Ditka and Lovie Smith) to the bad (everyone else), has come with questions about what they’d look like as the person in charge.

Johnson’s emotional intelligence is one of the many things that set Johnson apart from his predecessors. Matt Eberflus was seemed rarely at ease — perhaps because of the team’s record. Matt Nagy was comfortable in his own skin, but both he and his “Club Dub” creation grew tired when the team stopped winning as much as it did in 2018.

Johnson gave a glimpse of that self-awareness in his first spring with the team, when he recited a poem about Brian Piccolo before the team’s annual Piccolo Awards. He’s remained the same way, even during the stresses of the season. His decision to rip his shirt off during a “Black Friday” locker room celebration last year amused his players — and fed Chicagoans free hot dogs. Hearing Johnson talk about how much he hated the Packers — in colorful language — fed Bears fans on a spiritual level.

The intensity, though, is never too far from the surface. When the Bears traded for Jeffery Simmons last week, the defensive tackle admitted that the only thing he really knew about Johnson was the fact that he yapped at him during a joint practice in August

“We talked a little smack back and forth when they came to visit Tennessee,” he said. “But I'm excited to know what he's doing with this team — and what he's building here.”