The most important factor in the success of an NFL team will always be the players. However, coaching does matter, especially for fantasy football purposes. Widely regarded as one of, if not the best, offensive coordinators in the league, Ben Johnson now gets his first head coaching opportunity with the Chicago Bears. He will make all of the Bears’ key offensive players better. How much better? Let’s examine.
Fantasy Football Impact of Ben Johnson as Chicago Bears Head Coach
Johnson wasted no time in securing his spot among NFL head coaches. Literally two days after the Lions were eliminated from the playoffs by the Washington Commanders, Johnson reportedly agreed to terms with the Bears.
Bear down: Chicago is finalizing a deal to hire Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson as its next head coach, sources tell ESPN. Bears are getting their man. pic.twitter.com/UwlLk3wNJZ
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 20, 2025
Given how fresh this is, there is still a lot we don’t know about his coaching staff. Johnson will have to hire an offensive coordinator. Regardless of who that is, though, it’s pretty safe to assume Johnson will be the one calling plays. That went pretty well for the Lions.
Detroit’s Offensive Touchdown Rate By Season
- 2021 (before Johnson took over): 19.7% TD rate
- 2022: 29.5% TD rate
- 2023: 30.5% TD rate
- 2024: 37.4% TD rate
Last season, the Bears’ touchdown rate was 18.2%, 24th in the league. The question is whether Johnson can do for the Bears pretty much exactly what he did for the Lions.
Caleb Williams
Jared Goff recorded QB+ grades that placed him in the bottom half of the NFL during each of his three seasons before Johnson became his offensive coordinator:
- 2019: 73.7 (C) grade ranked 19th
- 2020: 72.4 (C-) grade ranked 24th
- 2021: 63.8 (D) grade ranked 26th
However, in the three seasons after Johnson became the offensive coordinator, Goff improved his QB+ grade each season and never ranked outside the top six.
- 2022: 84.0 (B) grade ranked 6th
- 2023: 84.1 (B) grade ranked 4th
- 2024: 92.5 (A-) grade ranked 2nd
Caleb Williams ranked 33rd out of 39 qualifying QBs in 2024 with a 63.1 (D) grade, almost the exact same figure Goff recorded in 2021 before Johnson took over.
Now, to be fair, Goff was in the NFL for much longer than Williams by the time Johnson got his hands on him. Goff had already played in a Super Bowl. Even though no one looked at Goff as an obvious franchise QB, he’d proven much more than Williams has.
On the other hand, Williams’ one year of NFL experience means the jury is very much still out on him. His first season was objectively not good, but neither was Goff’s. And a big part of Goff’s struggles as a rookie was that his coach was Jeff Fisher. It doesn’t get much worse than that.
Williams had similar awful coaching in his rookie season. Yet, there were flashes. Williams posted five games with 22+ fantasy points. He also protected the ball incredibly well, throwing just six interceptions, which included a nine-game stretch where he threw the ball to the other team zero times.
The Bears still have a lot of work to do to repair their offensive line. But with Johnson’s creativity, Williams could emerge as a viable QB1 as a sophomore.
D’Andre Swift
The irony is certainly not lost on me that D’Andre Swift was the Lions’ RB1 when Johnson took over as Detroit’s offensive coordinator. That also has to be viewed as a positive in that Johnson has familiarity with the running back.
Obviously, Swift is not Jahmyr Gibbs. No one is. But expect Johnson to deploy Swift in the Gibbs role and for the Bears to look to bring in a complementary bruiser back in the mold of David Montgomery.
Coaches do things that work. The thunder-and-lightning backfield duo worked for Johnson in Detroit — expect him to try and replicate it in Chicago.
Will this benefit Swift’s fantasy value? It depends. Swift saw target shares of 18.4% and 15.1% in 2021 and 2022 with Johnson calling plays in Detroit. Then, in 2023 with the Eagles, that dropped to 10%. He was at 9.9% in 2024 with the Bears.
Even if Swift ends up seeing his carry share drop if Johnson can get that target share back up into the 13-14% range, combined with the offense as a whole being better, Swift’s floor should be the 12.6 fantasy points per game he averaged last season. His ceiling will depend on if he gets goal-line carries. It is far too early to speculate on that.
DJ Moore and Rome Odunze
Was DJ Moore a disappointment last season? Kind of. He averaged 14.0 ppg, which isn’t terrible. He just didn’t really pop that often. 16 points is the rough threshold for WR1 production. Moore hit that number just four times all season, and one of those came in Week 18, which doesn’t count.
Moore also had a rookie quarterback and a completely incompetent offense. Could Johnson make Moore his new Amon-Ra St. Brown? I suspect he will try.
Whether Williams can deliver the ball to Moore as well as Goff can deliver it to ARSB remains to be seen. But in Year 2, if Williams can take a step forward and Johnson can inject some creativity into this offense, we could see Moore rebound to 2023 levels of production when he averaged a career-best 16.9 ppg.
One hiccup in Moore’s possible rebound could be sophomore Rome Odunze. The consensus WR3 from the 2024 rookie class had a respectable 54 catches for 734 yards and three touchdowns as a rookie.
We know that rookie WRs need to reach 525 yards to have a realistic chance of ever amounting to a productive NFL receiver. We also know that the higher a rookie’s receiving yardage is, the higher his future upside is. 900 yards is about where we see the sure things. Odunze obviously fell well short of that, but not so short that there’s no chance he will become a high-end receiver.
The real concern is that Odunze ran a lot of routes and did not do much with them. His yards per route run was 1.18. Now, let’s put that in proper context.
From a team perspective, Moore was at 1.52. So, clearly, an overall offensive issue negatively impacted everyone’s numbers. We already know Moore to be a good receiver. Yet, he fell well below the 2.0 number we’d like to see.
From a rookie WR perspective, it’s not good. Here is where some of his peers were at last season in yards per route run:
- Brian Thomas Jr.: 2.46
- Ladd McConkey: 2.4
- Malik Nabers: 2.19
- Marvin Harrison Jr.: 1.64
Here are the guys around Odunze going back to 2011.
The upside case is obviously Nico Collins and, to a lesser extent, Robert Woods. However, Collins’ third-year breakout coincided with a massive increase in QB play when the Texans drafted C.J. Stroud. Woods is a major outlier, emerging in Year 5 after changing teams, getting not only a QB upgrade but a significant coaching upgrade. Neither is exactly a one-to-one comparison to Odunze.
With that said, if anyone can unlock Odunze, it’s Johnson. Whether Odunze is a value in fantasy football this year will depend entirely on cost. There is a WR2 upside with Odunze. I would not say the likelihood is high, though. But if he’s cheap enough, it will be a shot worth taking.
Cole Kmet
Truthfully, I strongly considered not even mentioning Cole Kmet. Johnson is not some TE whisperer. Sam LaPorta was so successful in Detroit because LaPorta is an elite talent.
Kmet is entering his sixth season, and he has one year of averaging more than 8.7 ppg. Last year, he saw just a 10.4% target share.
Even if the Bears don’t bring back Keenan Allen, as great as Johnson may be, I struggle to see how Williams supports the fantasy values of Moore, Odunze, Swift, and Kmet. Johnson’s arrival doesn’t move the needle on Kmet at all.
