One man's potential Chicago Bears disaster looks laughable to others

It makes little difference whether a coach has "spawned" any number of other head coaches. Each one is an individual and their success entirely unpredictable.

Take Tom Landry, for instance. One of the greatest coaches in NFL history had numerous direct coaching branches but the only one who blossomed with a Super Bowl win was one few would have expected. That's Mike Ditka.

It's simply not a predictable situation, but it doesn't mean Johnson is necessarily disaster waiting to happen, either.

Johnson appears as well equipped to take over a team as both Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan were, if not more so.

McVay had the same number of years as an offensive coordinator as Johnson with three, and eventually achieved success comparable to Johnson's with the third-ranked attack in yardage. However, Johnson's success came immediately and with three offenses ranked second, third and fourth. McVay's never got ranked top 10 until his third year.

When McVay became a head coach is when his real genius showed, as he took the last-ranked offense and in four of his first five years had the Rams ranked top 10.

Shanahan's situation is much different as he kicked around as an offensive coordinator for almost a decade, experienced highs and lows before becoming a head coach, then had teams struggle two years before his breakthrough.

Perhaps the best question about Johnson is how he will handle inevitable failure. Can he do it the way Shanahan has, the way McVay has?

Both McVay and Shanahan experienced it, McVay moreso as head coach after they won the Super Bowl. The Rams have bounced back.

Johnson enjoyed only success as an offensive coordinator. It's true they lost in the NFC playoffs last year and a trick play call he made proved huge—the intercepted Jameson Williams pass. But they scored 31 points against a team that made the NFC Championship Game. Pin that loss on a defense that couldn't prevent 45 points from being scored.

Failure on so large a platform is merely less success than disaster, anyway.

So, what happens when Johnson does meet up with real failure?

This is Chicago, after all. He is trying to construct an offense from nothing.

It's a place where there has been one top 10 offense in yards gained this century and only three top 10 in scoring.

Chicago hasn't really been where quarterbacks or wide receivers go to die as much as it's been where they go to die, rot and then become fossilized.

It's truly a colossal unknown how Johnson handles this adversity. Anything could happen, so anticipating coaching problems is looking too hard for the boogeyman. There are countless other issues more pressing.

The other potential disaster brought up by McKenna almost seems laughable. He said it could be their offensive line just doesn't mix.

"It’s not always easy to make an offensive line equal the sum of its parts," he wrote.

Did he see last year's offensive line? They went from No. 2 in rushing to 28th. They allowed 68 sacks.

During an episode of NFL Network's Good Morning Football this past week someone mentioned this stat and the panelists were all laughing, as they should. The Bears offensive line was a joke. Sixty-eight sacks is an absurd number, made worse by Caleb Williams holding the ball too long to look for big plays, but essentially based on terrible pass blocking.

Dr. Jekyll couldn't have put together a more volatile mix than last year's offensive line.

And so now everyone should worry about THIS offensive line failing to equal the sum of its impressive parts?

I'll take my chances, just like with the head coach.

The previous guys heading up the operation coached the same way their offensive line played, and the whole team was laughed at across the country during a 10-game losing streak, the Hail Mary pass, the blocked field goal and the Thanksgiving Day disaster.