Less than 48 hours after the Detroit Lions' season-ending loss to the Washington Commanders, offensive coordinator Ben Johnson had a deal in place to become the new head coach of the Chicago Bears. Lions' fans have had a harsh reaction, only further fueled by Johnson's words upon arriving at the Bears' headquarters on Tuesday.
In terms of player reaction to Johnson's departure, Lions' running back David Montgomery went the humorous route with a photoshopped Instagram post that seemed to say "Really, you're leaving us for them?" Montgomery being a former Bear added a notable layer there.
On the new episode of his podcast, posted on Wednesday morning, Lions' wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown reacted to the Johnson news.
"Obviously, I love Ben. One of my favorite coaches that I’ve ever had, I would say for sure. He’s smart, he’s one of the hardest working coaches that I’ve been around. But obviously, I would want to have him in Detroit forever, but that’s not the reality of things. Other teams are going to approach him. He’s going to want to—I feel like every coach, not every coach, but a lot of coaches want to be a head coach at one point in their lives if they can. This is the best opportunity, I think, for him to leave. If he didn’t leave this year, I feel like teams would say, “Oh, what’s wrong with him? He had the most points.’ We had the highest-scoring offense in the league. We lost early, unfortunately, but I feel like this was the year for him to leave and he took it. So I don’t blame him.”
St. Brown did hit some expected sentiment, with some playful banter with Johnson upon him taking the Bears' job.
“I told him, I said, ‘For two times a year, Ben, we’re going to f**k you up,’” St. Brown said. “He goes, ‘I’ma f**k you up.’ I said, ‘Okay, we’ll see.’ I told him I know all the plays he likes to run. I know all his tendencies. But we were just going back and forth messing around. It’s funny. He’s like, ‘If I want to be the best, I’ve got to beat the best, right?’”
Amon-Ra St. Brown disagrees with popular Lions' fan sentiment about Ben Johnson
It's easy to lament how the NFL head coach hiring cycle works. Assistant coaches on playoff teams can interview for head coaching jobs in the midst of their current team's postseason run, and it's sheer human nature to have some level of divided attention.
Johnson, and Lions' defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn, were able to interview during the playoff bye week. But those initial virtual interviews were done a week before the game against the Commanders, and before the Lions even knew who their Divisional Round opponent would be. Head coach Dan Campbell made it clear the staff would be careful not to do a lot of preparation for an opponent they may not see.
Despite it being a typical week of preparation, a strong portion of Lions' fans have lamented that Johnson (and Glenn) were not focused on or sufficiently prepared for the Commanders. Regarding Johnson, St. Brown addressed that when his brother Equanemious brought up that sentiment from Lions' fans.
"Everyone on Twitter—the Lions fans—f**king hating him, talking about, ‘He didn’t prepare for this (playoff game). He was taking interviews on the bye week.’ Trust me. I know Ben. He was as locked in as can be for that game,” St. Brown said.
St. Brown wouldn't say anything other than what he said about Johnson's preparation heading into the playoff game. It's also not in his general nature to just shrug off things like that, so he defended his now-former coordinator with a perspective fans simply can't have about what was going on with Johnson in the week before the playoff loss.
