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Ben Johnson's first Chicago Bears offense slammed by deflating rank
There's a lot of work to be done on the offensive side of the football at Halas Hall if one ranking of NFL attacks is accurate. Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

An offseason of moves, a new coach with spectacular, consistent success over three straight years and a young quarterback certified both by draft pedigree and flashes of rookie success should generate some excitement in Chicago.

Apparently it doesn't excite the people at the Pro Football and Sports Network, though.

The website, which claims to use analytics in arriving at its conclusions, has assigned a power ranking to every offense in the league. They sure like what Ben Johnson built in Detroit but not what he's building at Halas Hall.

PFN grades the Detroit Lions offense No. 1 for this season. Apparently new coordinator John Morton will step right in and inherit all of the controls for this machine Johnson helped build and controlled for three years, and operate it efficiently.

However, Johnson has come to a team in the midst of adding offensive talent and PFN says people in Chicago will simply need to wait to see success.

Johnson's Chicago offense is rated 30th by PFN. They are ranked ahead of only last-place Cleveland and the 31st-ranked Giants.

At least they see the Bears' 30th ranking as being far above the two mired teams at the bottom.

"The Bears may not have the results to sell their fan base on the strides they are taking, and the overall offensive metrics are also lagging," PFN wrote. "Yet, not all poor grades are created equal, and Chicago isn’t in the same tier as the following two squads."

The analysis seems to suggest success will be coming with more experience by Johnson as a head coach and with the offense operating under his direction.

"Patience requires time. It sounds silly, but many fan bases (and coaching staffs, for that matter) don’t mind being patient as long as there is enough growth to sell to their superiors," PFN wrote, before pointing out Caleb Williams "...looked the part at moments last season, and the franchise is clearly committed to building around him."

It was an underwhelming grade for Johnson's first offense and only two spots better than they finished for 2024 in yards gained. They were last then. 

Pro Football Network says it arrived at these rankings based on "...yards per play, points per drive, turnover percentage, success rate against the run and pass, third-down conversion rate, red-zone efficiency, pressure percentage when not blitzing, and various expected points added (EPA) measures against both the run and pass. These are then weighted accordingly to produce our rankings for each season."

Apparently they're arriving at this based on the past.

If they wanted to rank 2024 offenses, PFN should have simply said so because it's what they've really done. The current 2025 Bears offense has four new starters, possibly five, and an attack led by the 2024 assistant coach of the year. He took a miserable offense and transformed it into a top five unit three straight years.

This needs to count for a little more than a ranking reflecting last year's debacle with two offensive coordinators and a head coach who was fired in season for the first time in franchise history.

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This article first appeared on Chicago Bears on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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