Bears beginning to assume identity of coach Ben Johnson

Johnson is renowned for his creativity and trick plays, but that’s not what fuels his success.

“I think the secret sauce is really in the fundamentals and the attention to detail,” said Bears passing game coordinator Press Taylor. “And once you’re there and everybody understands what that looks like, what that is, it’s not as big of a deal inside the building to be this creative force.”

During his introductory press conference in January, Johnson vowed not to just bring his Lions playbook with him to Chicago but to formulate a new system that’s calibrated with second-year quarterback Caleb Williams in mind.

“We’re ripping this thing down to the studs and we’re going to build it up with him first and foremost,” Johnson said at the time.

The Bears coach and his staff are currently in the midst of that process at Halas Hall.

“We stripped it all down,” Doyle said. “Ben talked about going to the bare bones. Like, ‘How are we going to speak? What’s the language we’re going to use?’ And getting everybody on the same page as far as that goes from an offensive standpoint.

“It’s going to be a long time before we finalize [and say], ‘This is exactly what the scheme will look like in Game 1.’ We really want to just lay the foundation, introduce these guys to a lot of the scheme, see what they can handle. We want it to be stressful early. And then from there we’re going to shape it to fit our players the best … Ben is very much into being able to morph the offense to fit the player. And that’s really the plan here moving forward.”