Johnson hasn’t ripped into the Bears in a while, but was effective when he did it in training camp and early in the season.<\/b>
\nIt\u2019s been a while since Bears coach Ben Johnson went off on his offense, but he let it fly after a 19-16 loss to the Lions on Sunday to end the regular season.
They matched their season low in scoring from late October, hit a new one in yardage at 270 and were down 16-0 going into the fourth quarter. And sloppiness was one of the main reasons their late rally fell short, specifically an intentional-grounding penalty by quarterback Caleb Williams with 2:02 left that put the Bears in a third-and-20.
\u201cWe can\u2019t dig ourselves in a hole like that,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cI was disappointed with the offense as a whole. I let those guys know that. And we\u2019ll be better for it. We\u2019ll address it. We\u2019ll get those things cleaned up and we\u2019ll be better for it.\u201d
He was especially frustrated by the offensive struggles because the Bears used one of their \u201csimpler\u201d game plans of the season. When asked if his game plan was simplified to avoid showing too much ahead of the upcoming playoff game against the Packers, Johnson said no.
As he has before, Johnson not only ripped into the poor performance, but warned the Bears that playing this way will cost them going forward. He said he was \u201cnot pleased with the offense at all,\u201d and the Bears won\u2019t get away with that in the playoffs.
\u201cThe stakes are a lot higher here going forward,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe can\u2019t afford to have one of our three phases play like we did [Sunday], so we\u2019re going to have to pick it up. I get fired up just thinking about [making corrections] right now.\u201d
Johnson criticized the offense throughout the offseason, most notably in an early-August practice and after their preseason finale against the Chiefs.
He was exasperated by pre-snap errors in training camp and said Aug. 3 the offense was \u201csloppier than we were hoping we would be at this point,\u201d and warned, \u201cIf it continues like that, we\u2019re not going to win many games.\u201d
Three weeks later he openly contemplated scaling back his playbook going into the season because of \u201creally sloppy football\u201d by the first-team offense in a preseason game against the Chiefs.
He fumed again in September about the team\u2019s overall imprecision after the 0-2 start and said the Bears were outworked by the Lions in a 52-21 loss and their \u201cpractice habits are yet to reflect a championship-caliber team.\u201d
The Bears thought they were past all that after rallying to 11-4, winning the division and Williams and the offense thriving the last three games. They certainly took a step backward Sunday.<\/p>\n