Ben Johnson reveals his aggressive fourth-down strategy stemmed from deep faith in his defense's red-zone prowess, not from a lack thereof.
The Chicago Bears were pulling out all the stops against the Green Bay Packers on Saturday night.
That included going for it on multiple fourth downs throughout the game. There was one specific instance on a 4th-and-5 on Chicago's own 32-yard line.
Caleb Williams tried to get the ball to Luther Burden, but it fell incomplete, giving the ball to the Packers in prime field position. When it was all said and done, head coach Ben Johnson went for it six times on fourth down and converted two of them.
The Bears won 31-27 to advance to the next round and will take on the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday.
When a head coach elects to be as aggressive as Johnson was on fourth down, it can suggest he doesn't have faith in his defense to get stops. However, Johnson clarified at a recent press conference that it wasn't the case, but quite the opposite.
Johnson stated that he felt more inclined to go for it on fourth down because he believes his defense is capable of getting stops, especially in the red zone, given how close the previous two meetings with the Packers earlier in the year were.
"Well, yeah, I think the previous two games there's less possessions offensively than I would have liked to have, and so the aggressive fourth down mentality had something to do with time of possession and making sure that we're maximizing our possessions," Johnson said. "It's a strategy we talked about as a team. The whole team was highly aware of it and had a lot of confidence. I think where it gets misconstrued is there's a lack of confidence in your defense when you do that. I think the opposite. I think it's because I have confidence in our defense and their ability to stop teams in the red zone."
This answer makes it sound like Johnson was trying to lean on his defense, but in reality, the Bears' defense struggled to make stops in the red zone.
In the first half alone, the Packers scored two of their three touchdowns in the red zone. One of which was Johnson's decision to go for it on that 4th-and-5.
Instead, it seems Johnson was just afraid of falling too far behind the Packers in scoring, which is why he opted to be so aggressive on fourth down.
If the head coach were really confident in his defense's ability to get stops, then he wouldn't have punted the ball back to the Detroit Lions in Week 18. The Bears were trying to go for the win, but an intentional grounding call backed up the offense to a 3rd-and-20. Chicago nearly picked up the first down, but Kyle Monangai was five yards short.
The field position was very similar to the Bears' situation versus the Packers. Except this was late in the game. With 1:55 left on their own 31-yard line, the Bears punted the ball back to the Lions.
There was an even a clip of Johnson that circulated on X on him saying, "Should've gone for it." As fans know, Detroit went down and kicked the game-winning field goal, and the Bears lost 19-16.
At the end of the day, it makes sense why Johnson said what he did because he obviously doesn't want to throw his defense under the bus publicly. However, it definitely wasn't because he was confident they would get red-zone stops.