The Chicago Bears, at this point, could only dream of having the success that the New England Patriots had from 2000-20. Nine trips to the Super Bowl, including six championships, the greatest quarterback and coach of all time, and countless other elite players made it a special run of dominance.
New Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson was able to witness some of that during his time with the Miami Dolphins, a division rival of the Patriots. From 2012-19, Johnson was an assistant coach in Miami, specializing in different positions each season. He was there for over a dozen matchups against the Patriots, which gave him some insight.
“Every game is its own entity. That’s what I learned. I saw it for a number of years when I was in Miami,” Johnson said last week. “The New England Patriots were at the top of the league for so long, and each week, you just didn’t know. Offense and defense, they just continued to morph, and they had their opponents guessing. You didn’t know what Belichick was gonna pull out front-wise or coverage-wise on defense. You didn’t know what McDaniels was gonna do on offense. That’s something I would like to do here as well. The elements play a role. Our talent plays a role. Who we’re going against plays a role. It all plays a piece in the puzzle, and that’s what’s fun about each game week.”
Bill Belichick is a defensive-minded coach, but the mindset is the same. Continue to grow and learn with each passing week. Never give up on being harder to play against with each passing day. Even with Josh McDaniels running the offense in New England under Belichick’s head coaching, they never failed to make changes as the league adapted to them.
Having Tom Brady made everything a little bit easier for the Patriots, but New England never married one type of play style. Johnson is a proponent of the same philosophy, according to his own comments from practice. Sometimes, they’ll run the ball more. Sometimes, quarterback Caleb Williams will be relied on to make plays. To put it like the head coach, each week is its own entity.
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This article originally appeared on Bears Wire: Bears’ Ben Johnson taking inspiration from Bill Belichick’s Patriots