The method behind Ben Johnson's madness isn't always apparent.
And make no mistake, it is madness—for defenses. This is entirely apparent based on the podcast done a month ago by Lions receiver Amon-Rah St. Brown, when he called Johnson one of the best coaches he's been around, and lauded his play design and trick plays in a discussion with former Lions cornerback Will "Big Play" Slay.
The conversation underscored what Johnson told everyone when he arrived in Chicago about learning from former Bears offensive coordinator John Shoop how to make a play look like something else.
In his opening press conference, Johnson revealed his belief in the analytical statistic expected points added, or EPA, as now even more important than turnovers.
How a team and particularly Johnson achieve higher EPA is a great unanswered question. ESPN's Bill Barnwell penned an article pinpointing the way Johnson has done this and will try to continue to get the EPA number higher for the Bears.
In "2025 NFL offseason: NFC teams' best and worst deals, picks, more," Barnwell lauds Johnson's use of play-action passing on 36% of Jared Goff passes last year and called it a key factor in EPA boost.
"The average (NFL) dropback pass with no play-fake generated 0.15 EPA last season," Barnwell wrote. "Adding a play-fake bumped that to 0.21 EPA per play; that's roughly the difference between the average pass from the 2024 Rams and 2024 Steelers."
Barnwell praised the Bears' selection of players like Colston Loveland and Luther Burden in the draft as facilitating this play-action emphasis.
"They moved on from Keenan Allen and replaced him with rookie second-round pick Luther Burden, who was one of the best receivers at generating yards after the catch in this draft class," Barnwell wrote.
A player like Burden lets them them run more in-breaking routes, like digs. Barnwell writes that the play-action fakes "...create throwing lanes and vertical space for all the dig and other in-breaking routes Goff throws so well."
And now it will be Caleb Williams who needs to throw to those routes.
Loveland's selection in the draft as a move tight end has been viewed as a way to create mismatches since he was selected. They'll be able to use 12-personnel extensively, which also plays into the mismatch emphasis.
Johnson comes to the Bears as a modern NFL offensive mind with modern analytical emphasis.
Boosting EPA has been identified as a goal and as unfamiliar as many football fans might be with such statistics, the real effect they'll see is more long plays, more scoring and more madness for defenses because of his methods.
