Before the Chicago Bears fully submit their pick, there will be plenty of speculation on who the team will select in the 2025 NFL Draft. While head coach Ben Johnson won’t name names, he revealed the exact type of player the Bears will be targeting.
As Johnson steps into his role, he’ll be looking to build a new culture in Chicago. The Bears haven’t made the playoffs since 2020, and haven’t made it past the Wild Card round since 2010. It may take some time, but Johnson wants to bring the Bears back to prevalence.
His first opportunity to do so will be in the 2025 NFL Draft. When Chicago scours their big board, waiting to turn their card in, Johnson said the Bears will be looking at players who are physical but can still play sound football, via team reporter Larry Mayer.
“The identity of our team going forward, it’s going to be a physical, a sound and a poised group,” Johnson told ChicagoBears.com.
“We want to see a level of physicality pop off the tape when we’re watching that. The sound fundamentals, that’s something whether they’re either currently showing that or they’re showing a willingness to learn that,” Johnson continued. “And then the poised part, that’s the fun part is finding out how well they perform when the lights are the brightest. So there will be certain situations we’re looking at.”
Chicago Bears put draft prospects to the test
As General Manager Ryan Poles was looking for his next head coach, he asked each candidate how to stop a bad trend. Johnson’s answer particularly resonated with Poles, helping him land the job. As the Bears evaluate prospects at the 2025 combine, they’ve given each a different kind of pop quiz.
Johnson and company have ‘challenged’ prospects during their one-on-one interviews to, ‘test their mettle.’ Chicago wants to get a good understanding of how they handle pressure. The Bears went on an embarrassing nine-game kid after their Washington Commanders disaster. Johnson wanted to know how each prospect handles adversity.
“We try to put a little bit of pressure on them at times in those meetings,” Johnson said, “just to see how they respond to it because at the end of the day that’s what’s going to win or lose games for us, those one-score games that every team’s a part of each year.”
At the same time, the Bears are trying to get a real feel out of each prospect they interview. There’s only so much you can learn at brief NFL combine session. But Johnson is at least acclimating himself to this year’s class. Once learning their personalities, the head coach wants to get a strong feel of each prospect’s football acumen.
“For us, it’s getting a feel for the football intelligence and it’s getting a feel for the personality, as much as we possibly can in 18 minutes,” Johnson said. “The only way you can do that in my opinion is to get the player to talk. We have a couple of icebreakers to get them going and then we dive into the film quickly after that.
“That’s really what they have the most familiarity with and they can speak on the most. It gives us a good idea what their foundation is, and I think it comes out as they talk, and you listen how coachable they’re going to be and what they’ve been exposed to.”
Johnson getting first taste of head coach responsibilities
For all the buzz Ben Johnson has received since joining the Chicago Bears, this is still the first time he will be a head coach at the NFL level. There are sure to be growing pains and learning moments throughout the first few months. But Johnson now gets to see what an NFL combine looks like a head coach.
And that will be true for every NFL event to follow. Free agency, training camp, preseason, Johnson will truly get to understand how to go through each process in his new role. But he doesn’t plan on doing it alone.
Johnson meticulously built out his coaching staff, looking for experienced coaches who can bring a new vision. Longtime Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy was brought in as the new running backs coach. Former New Orleans Saints head coach Dennis Allen was hired as the defensive coordinator. Each hire made, so that Johnson has valuable voices to turn to as he goes through each process as a first-time head coach.
“That was part of the vision in bringing Dennis Allen into the building,” Johnson said. “He’s a guy that I’ve been able to lean heavily into it, not just from the combine perspective but also from scheduling to what the weight room’s going to look like this springtime and bounce ideas off of. He’s had a lot of exposure here in the combine, the formal interviews, what we want that to look like, and he’s been able to navigate that process.”
Ultimately, the combine will allow Ben Johnson and the Bears to build their foundation with youth. Heading into the NFL Draft, Johnson already knows the type of player he wants to bring to Chicago.
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