January 31, 2025 • 41 mins
New Bears coordinators Dennis Allen and Declan Doyle met with members of the media on Thursday. Shaw Local's Sean Hammond and Michal Dwojak discuss their first impressions of the new additions to Ben Johnson's coaching staff.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/shaw-local-s-bears-insider-podcast--3098936/support.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/shaw-local-s-bears-insider-podcast--3098936/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, and welcome to the Shaw Local Bears Insider Podcast.
Welcome back. Michael Duojack is here with me. I'm Sean Hammon.
We are back for yet another episode of the Shaw
Local Bears Insider Podcast. Thanks for joining us. If you're
with us live here, do us a favor. Hit the
thumbs up on YouTube. I don't know there there it is.
(00:22):
There is my thumb. You know, you got to get
the angle right. If you're listening on Apple or Spotify,
you don't know what we're talking about, but there is
a thumb on the screen. And also if you're listening
on Apple and Spotify, come join us. Keep an eye
on our Twitter pages. We will let you know when
we're gonna go live. Thank you for joining us. We
talked to the new Bears coordinators. Obviously, that's been the
(00:44):
news since we last met with you guys a week ago.
The Bears hired Dennis Allen as defensive coordinator, which had
kind of been on everybody's radar since Ben Johnson was hired,
but that became official. They hired twenty eight year old
Decklan Doyle as their offensive coordinator, and now everybody knows
that Ben Johnson's really the guy running the offense, and
(01:06):
he's gonna be the one calling plays. But Declan Doyle,
twenty eight years old, joins the staff as the offensive coordinator,
and the Bears kept Richard high Tower as special teams coordinator.
He was there for three years under Fluse. He previously
held that role for Kyle Shanahan and San Francisco, so
he's sticking around too. Those are your three, your your
big coordinators. There your your three big coordinators. Obviously, I
(01:29):
know some other guys there's passing game coordinators and all
that stuff, but those are the big ones. Michael. We
got to talk to them yesterday. What what big picture?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
What kind of stood out for you big picture?
Speaker 3 (01:39):
There's a coach younger than me in the NFL and
that kind of is tough to swallow, but we'll just
deal with it. But no, it seems like everyone, you know,
everyone kind of knew what the assignment is, right Like
if Dennis Allen knew like he's gonna he emphasized like
he's now looking ahead or anything like that. He talked
about not looking to be a head coach, and he's
(02:01):
there to you know, obviously run a really good defense,
but he's there to be a sounding board for for
Ben Johnson. And that seems really important just to kind of,
you know, kind of mention that because you know, he
has head coaching experience, so he understood that. Deckln Doyle
understood what his job and that's going to be you know,
a big scout for uh, for Ben Johnson, getting him
a good start, and you know, even Richard high Tower,
(02:23):
you know, talked about, you know, why he wanted to
stay on and special teams and you know the aggressive
nature of Ben Johnson. It just seemed like everyone is
really bought into what their job is going to be
under Ben Johnson. I think that's the biggest thing where
sometimes you'll get some personalities. Sometimes you'll get some guys
who are kind of like, well they're trying to you know,
(02:45):
prove themselves and that kind of stuff where it seems
like all three guys know what they need to be
doing in order for this whole thing to succeed. And
at least at the first impressions on Thursday, it was
kind of like everyone knows what they're expecting to do
in order to make this thing be a s sessible
as possible. And you kind of heard a lot of
that when we were meeting with them on Thursday.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah, these are these are going to be the right
hand men, so to speak, for for Ben Johnson, I
think Dennis Allen Is is an interesting one. You brought
it up an episode or two ago, Michael. You know,
he's he's been a head coach twice. Not a whole
lot of guys get three chances at that, and he's
(03:25):
probably gonna be sticking around, like you can you can
you know, push him over on that defensive side and
say you deal with that. You know, you get those
guys playing well, and Ben Johnson can can you know,
sleep easy at night knowing that, like his defense is
in good hands. This is a guy who was Sean
Payton's defensive coordinator for seven years in New Orleans, in
(03:45):
between his stints as as a head coach with the
Raiders and with the Saints. They run the same the
same base defense, the four to three scheme that that
Matt Eberflus did, or at least a similar type of defense.
I know that that good defenses in in the NFL
have to do multiple things, and that's always going to
be the case, I think from here on out. But
(04:07):
I mean Dennis Allen, Saints' defenses were pretty good. I mean,
I know, obviously seven years there's ups and downs, but
there were a couple of years there twenty twenty, twenty
twenty one where where they were top five in a
number of different categories, I feel like. And he was asked,
you know, about the guys on the team, of course,
and he brought up some guys. It's interesting that both
(04:30):
Dennis Allen and Ben Johnson, maybe because they were talking together,
but they both mentioned Kyler Gordon as a player that
they really like. There's some good pieces there, and I
think that he's going to be able to do good
things for this defense.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah, I think he'll be really good for this defense.
Like you said, you know, I had my five interesting
things that they said yesterday where you know, Dennis Allen
when he took over the Saints as a d C
second time around to twenty fifteen, you know, they were
bottom in most categories, defensive categories, and then you know,
around twenty two and twenty one, twenty two, they're top five,
(05:03):
top ten, and then obviously they're in the top half
in twenty twenty three, and then things took a little
bit of a turn obviously last year and he got fired.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
But yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
He's been proven to show you that he can, you know,
he can build defenses. He can he's aggressive, obviously, that's
what he talked about. You know, he's going to be
an aggressive style. I thought one of the more interesting
things he kind of talked about was and I think
we've known this for a while, but he really shouted
out the secondary, right, Like obviously he talked about Tyler Gordon,
but he talked about how he liked the length of
(05:34):
the coroners and that kind of stuff and how much
that can really help him in man coverage and you know,
their versatility and the kind of stuff. And I thought
it was also interesting that he said he likes what
they have or like he thinks there are good pieces
on the linebacker position in that the defensive line. And
when he was asked about, you know, adding on, he said,
you know, our job is to develop, but we're also
(05:57):
you know, going to see what's out there. And I
thought that was really interesting to see. You know, how
much how much turnover is this defense going to have?
You know what I mean, Like it seems like the
secondary is pretty much going to be the secondary Obviously
we need to see what Jakwan Brisker is going to do.
Is Kyli Gordon going to get an extension and that
kind of stuff. But I think it's interesting that he
said that he likes what the linebackers and the defensive
(06:19):
line has. And I'm sure that's Montest sweat. I'm sure
that's TJ. Edwards, but I'm curious to see he's He
was pretty vocal about saying like they're going to be
changes if we want, like working with Ryan to make changes.
And I'm curious to see what that is when it
comes to, you know, fitting his more aggressive style of defense.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yeah, And and I think that that aggressive is is
going to be like a word we hear a lot
with Ben Jonson Steen, whether we're talking about going for
it on fourth down, whether we're talking about the defense. Uh,
you know, looking back at Dennis Allen's defenses in New Orleans,
like there were some years where they had really high
(06:57):
blitz rates in some years where they where they didn't,
And so like, I really do think it's kind of
that ebb and flow of like you know, what do
you have at your disposal? Like what players can do,
who's good at what and that's really what Ben Johnson
was talking about on the offensive side too, is like
you got to put your players in in the best
position to succeed. And yeah, clearly they need to add
(07:19):
some you know, we all know that they need to
add another edge rusher. Yeah, to health Montest sweat out.
We all know that that. When Andrew Billings went down
last year, that, as Ben Johnson said, like that changed
everything for the defense. And I think you need you
need a real solid backup plan. Obviously you need Andrew
Billings back healthy and he should be, but you need
(07:40):
a backup plan too, because you can't just have one
guy get hurt and then everything falls apart for that
defensive line, right.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
I think the biggest thing is just you know, he said,
you know, he likes the foundation, Like that's one of
the bigger things about why he was attracted to this job.
Obviously he was looking at other defensive coordinator positions and
obviously the foundation is there for the Bears, and I
think that's the biggest thing. And now it's just trying
to you know, kind of mold it into what he
wants it to be. And you know that's going to
(08:07):
be a little bit different I'm sure from what Mattyberflus ran,
but it'll be fairly similar. I'm sure, you know, we'll
see he was asked about blitzing. Obviously, he kind of
re emphasized what Ben Johnson talked about, you know, the
shifting dynamics and the importance of the quarterback, and you
know how important the quarterback position is in today's NFL.
And you know, he talked about like you need to
(08:28):
get after the quarterback right, like you need to be
aggressive toward it. So that that was a really interesting
thing and something that I think will be once we
move a little bit further here when it comes to
free agency and the draft. Is is finding someone opposite
of Montest Sweat going to be a major storyline? Is
switching out what you have in linebacker going to be that?
So those are just all really interesting, you know, details
(08:51):
into what we can expect this defense to look like.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
I see you guys in the chat. Thanks for joining us,
Thanks for hopping on getting your thoughts in. Rick says
he really hopes Brisker can play next year. Let's see,
maybe moves Smitty to safety. I mean, they really like
him as a corner. I don't know they really do
seem to like him. But yeah, obviously you got you
(09:16):
got a bunch of really good corners, and he's a
guy you probably want to get on the field.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Let's see what else we got. H If you guys
have any other bears, thoughts, bears questions, drop them in
the chat. We will throw them on the screen. We
will discuss while we're talking defense. Michael, I didn't have
this on our list of things to hit, but Matt eberflush,
he's got a job. You've got a job this week.
He's going down to Dallas to be the defensive coordinator
back where he coached for I think it was seven
(09:42):
years as a as a position coach. My thoughts on
that are are okay, you know, good for him. Obviously
he can coach a defense. We know that. We'll we'll see,
we'll see how all that all that's that Cowboys stuff goes.
Because I know it's been a really weird couple of
weeks for them.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Yeah, I think that again serves as a remind We
kind of talked about this last week, but I think
this again serves as a reminder of how worse things
could be. Right, Like, I know many Cowboys fans who
are super excited about their head coaching hiring. You know,
Mandy Berfluce has always been a good DC, so I'm
sure he'll do good. Well, yeah, there, But I think
the whole situation in Jacksonville, the whole situation in Dell's
(10:24):
that's just a good reminder where I think we all
gave the Bears a little bit of a hard time
with their wide, raging start, seventeen candidates or whatever, but
at the end of the day they ended up with.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
The front runner and Ben Jonson.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Then I you know, I think things could be a
lot worse in a lot of different scenarios for the Bears.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Michael, did we talk about this already on the show,
Liam Cohen, your guy Liam Cohen and conference.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
We did not do vaal right, But again, my biggest
thing is do not do acronyms and do not do
like just have be normal, right, like the is that
so hard to do when doing in the introductory press conference?
Just be like a normal person, like interact like you
would interact with everyone else. And again that goes to
what we talked about last week, right where it's like,
(11:09):
does winning the press conference really mean anything? But then
you watch like Ben Johnson, Yeah, like a normal person
in his intro press conference, like answer questions and you know,
throw some subtle digs in there and like jokes or whatever.
And then you're watching these other coaches and you're like, oh, geez,
like what what they like?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Who told you this was a good idea? Like what
what it's like?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
It's just again, like things can be much worse, right,
So I think things are looking pretty good for the
Bears at this point.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Look, Liam Cohen did a did a nice job in Tampa.
He did a nice job with Baker Mayfield. He might
be a good head coach in the NFL. We'll see.
I'm just saying I have my doubts after after seeing,
uh what's what's transpired early on there in Jacksonville.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Also is Ian cunning hand to GM. Yet I was
told at the beginning of the week that it was
imminent and obviously that's still work in progress.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Yeah, I mean, man, you could do a whole. The
Jaguars are just like this whole. You can do a
whole like seminar on what not to do, uh when
you're when you're hiring a head coach, and and it's
just weird that that you got the head coach first
and now you're trying to backfill the GM spot. I
don't know they handled the whole. The Jaguars and the
Cowboys just did this all wrong.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
And and I think if you're a Bears fan, you're
you're happy to watch and maybe giggle from afar and say, hey,
at least that's not our team this time.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah it is. It is funny.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
And I saw Rick, you know, saying that you know,
in Cunningham can go, you'll get a couple of third
round picks.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
I don't know he was.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
He was with Ryan Pulls at the Senior Bowl this week, right,
So yeah, I mean, you see, it depends on the
Jacksonville timeline. But I remember, you know, Ryan talking about
how like he'll let Ian like go through the process,
like he's not gonna take him away from that. So
I'm wonder if that means anything, whether that means like
he they're moving on in a different position, or I
wonder if that means like, hey, like you're still working
(13:00):
for us and we don't know what you're doing, so
you might as well come out with Ryan and check
out some linemen.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Well, and in some ways. Now they have the same
We don't need to talk about the Jags that long,
but now they have the same problem where like they're
trying to find a GM and you got to say, Okay,
well you got to work with this coach that we
just hired, and maybe they have a relationship. Probably not,
you know, like it's hard to They just found out
how hard that was to do with a GM that
(13:27):
nobody seemed to like. Not saying that nobody likes Liam Cohen.
He's you know, a weird press conference society seems fine,
somebody will eventually take the job, but that I would
think would make it a little bit harder. Shifting gears
back to back to Bear's land here, we had not
really nobody had heard of Declan Doyle very much until
(13:50):
the other night when or last weekend when that was
first reported that he was interviewing twenty eight year old
Declan Doyle, Bear's offensive coordinator Michael He's young, obviously, but
I don't I don't know that that should matter all
that much if he can do the job right.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
No, and that's the biggest Like he is young.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
He didn't have a Wikipedia page until until he got
hired by the Bears or you know, reportedly hired by
the Bears. But he's not going to be the playmate,
play caller, right like the he Ben Johnson talked about
this last week and Ducklin kind of reiterated this week
where he's just gonna for lack of a better term,
And I'm not trying to disparage him or like look
down on his role, but he's basically going to be
(14:31):
a glorified scout, right Like he's going to be like
looking into all the different details that Ben Johnson won't
have the time to do because he's taken on head
coaching responsibilities, right And you know, from what we've seen,
like Ducklin seems like a really you know, intelligent guy.
He's been you know, for being so young, he's been
around NFL circles for a lot a while now, and
(14:53):
he learned from one of the best, right, Like he's
been with Sean Payton in New Orleans and in Denver.
And I think one of the bigger interesting things is
he's seen this process work, right, like with Sean Payton
in New Orleans. Obviously, Champagne is the head coach, but
he's also the play collar and he did that in
Denver too, and he's watched how Sean Payton and his
(15:14):
ocs have kind of, you know, split up the responsibilities
and kind of split up listen, like this is what
you need to do, this is what you need to
be looking for, and that kind of stuff. So I
think it's beneficial to have someone like that where obviously
you have the New Orleans connection, and you have someone
that you know, obviously Sean Payne and things a lot
about it at such a young age, but you also
have someone who's seen who's who's seen it done before
(15:36):
and seen it done well. And I think that's the
biggest thing where you know, you have the groundwork from
what it can work. And he talked about how you're
gonna have to morphit a little bit. It'll be different
with with what him and Ben want to do. But
you know, for yes, he's young, but he's seen someone
who can do it. And I think that's a really
important part of, you know, making this relationship work.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
This is a young coach who is hungry, who wants
to prove himself. Who who you know. He went to
Iowa as a student assistant coach and and basically, like
like you said, like he said yesterday, you know, did
all the stuff that nobody wanted to do. Like that's
that's your role when you're a student assistant and you
you move on to a quality control job in the
(16:16):
NFL in New Orleans, same thing, You're doing all the
stuff that nobody wants to do. You're you're you're prepping,
you know, the you're watching film on the opponent for
for next week. You're getting all that stuff ready. You're
you're maybe doing the nitty gritty game planning or even
just like drawing up the plays. You know, some somebody's
gonna be be the one to draw that stuff up
(16:38):
and and and distributed to the players and all that stuff.
And and then he moves to to Denver. He's a
you know, a promotion. He's the tight ends coach. Now
he's really got, you know, a hands on opportunity to
coach a position. And again, like coming to Chicago, obviously
as a coordinator, you have a lot more responsibilities. You
are in charge of half the team rough you know, basically, Yeah,
(17:02):
but in some ways it's it's similar where like he's
doing the stuff that Ben Johnson won't have time for
because Ben's going to have all these different things pull
tugging at him as he's the head coach. We all
know how that goes. I gotta imagine it was. It
was hard for Matt Eberfluse, you know, when he was
having when he was forced back into calling plays in
(17:23):
twenty twenty three because of the circumstances with the coaching staff,
and then again like this season, like that's a lot
of responsibility and and you got to have somebody you
can lean on. And I think that Ben Johnson sees
might maybe see a little bit of himself in this guy,
just because he's a younger coach, He's he's studied the
offensive side of the football. And for Declan Doyle, I
(17:46):
mean this is this is an awesome opportunity to learn
from like a really really great offensive mine. I don't
know why you would would turn that down.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Yeah, and it you know, I could hear the argument
of people being like, well, you know, out covet of
a job, would it be? Because you know, Ben Johnson's
obviously going to be the play caller, right, Like you're
not going to be involved in that, But you still
get a chance to work with Caleb Williams. You still
get a chance to learn from Ben Johnson. And I
think that's the biggest thing, right, Like, it's a really
cool opportunity, especially for Ducklin at such a young age,
(18:17):
to kind of get a lot of experience, learn like
what Ben Johnson sees, how he comes up with these
crazy plays, what is what his offensive philosophy is. And
I think that'll be really big. And I think another
important factor will be, you know, he mentioned, uh, you know,
he he was around you know, bon Nicks last year
when he watched when he watched cham Payne and to
(18:38):
kind of help develop him in that.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
And I think.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
That was a big thing too, where he talked about
how you know, they they made like they did things
offensively that they hadn't done before in New Orleans and
Denver to to put bone Nicks in the spot to succeed, right,
And that's something you didn't see with the Bears and
Caleb Williams. Where it felt like with Caleb Bill is
like this is Shane Waldron's offense. This is like, you know,
(19:02):
Sean mcvay's offense, This is how we do stuff. And
there wasn't like a lot of like I'm sure there
were adjustments, but there weren't like overt adjustments to help
Caleb succeed, and you saw that with with bo Nix
and Denver, so it'll be interesting to see, you know,
how much of a role he plays in Caleb's development too,
right where, Yes, everyone's gonna look at you know, Ben
(19:22):
Johnson and Caleb Williams and they're going to be attached
at the hip, but I mean Declan's also going to
be a major part of that, and he's going to
be a big part of Caleb's development and helping putting
him in the space to succeed.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Yeah, absolutely, that's yes, He's going to be a big
part of that. I don't want to downplay I know
I'm saying, like we're both kind of saying. He's going
to do the things that Ben Johnson doesn't have time for.
But he's going to be a huge part in what
this offense looks like. And he's a guy who has
has put in the time study in the game of
football over the last ten years. From from everything that
we've heard about him up to this point. The third coordinator,
(19:59):
Richard Hideo sticking around. Richard is a really nice dude,
and I'm glad that we still get to interview him
and he gets to hang out with us once a week.
I mean, I for me, like, I think the maybe
lack of aggressiveness on special teams sometimes was more of
a fluse thing than a Richard high tower thing. I
(20:21):
don't know. I'm fine with them keeping him. I think
he knows the roster really well. I think he knows
the guys. I think he would have you know, he
would get a special teams coordinator position if the Bears
let him go. I think he is an asset and
so I'm totally fine with them keeping him.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Yeah, and you know, he special teams was never really
reason for why this team wasn't succeeding, right, Like, it
was never like, oh, like, we're not doing well in
that regarded. You can get into the into the whole
Cairo Santos thing, you can get into all that sort
of stuff. But special teams wasn't why this team was losing.
And it's good to have a presence who's kind of
(20:58):
been around and as well could around the league. Right
And I think the most interesting from our time with
Richard yesterday was unprompted, he brought up how aggressive you
know Ben Johnson is and how much being aggressive on
special teams influences the other phases of the game, right,
And I think that's really something that was really encouraging
for you know, high power where you know, there are
(21:20):
some times where you're kind of like, man, you should
really go for it. You should be more aggressive, you
know in the special teams. You should have a play
call like they did in against the Green Bay Packers
at the end of the year with that fake kickoff, right, Like,
you should do more of that kind of thing stuff
to help yourself and your other phases succeed and keep
your defense off the field or like help your offense
with better field positioning.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
So it seemed really cool.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Just to kind of see all the coordinators talk about,
you know, really liking Ben Johnson's style, in his aggressive style,
and I think it's going to be I think that's
the biggest thing where that's going to be very different
from what we saw with Maddy reflucing the Bears over
the past few years, where they're gonna be much more
aggressive and kind of doing things differently than we're used
to seeing them watching them, you know, based on what
we've seen, you know into playoffs here a more aggressive
(22:07):
NFL than we're kind.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Of used to.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yeah, I mean, look, this is it's getting aggressive in
those situations. All all these teams, you know, the Lions,
the Commanders, these teams that are having a lot of
success are doing it that way. I really do think
that the Bears are going under Ben Johnson are going
to do that and take that similar. We're talking about
a guy who was you know, studied math in computer
(22:29):
science in college. Talking about Ben Johnson, like he he
understands where the advantages are and where you can maybe
get you know, a five percent better chance to win
or whatever. You see all those tweets about the you know,
chances of winning if you go for it here, blah
blah blah. Like he gets all that stuff. And and
I think that he seems to have a good balance
(22:51):
of like getting that but also reading the room and
like understanding his players and and you know that's there's
people that play the you know, it's not just a
computer program.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Yeah, and yeah, that seems to be the big thing
where I feel like maybe Dan Campbell wasn't too aggressive.
I mean maybe there's some times obviously you've seen that
kind of bagfire on him, but I think, you know,
Ben Johnson has seen the good stuff or the benefits
of going for it, but he's also seen the bad
stuff of like we probably shouldn't have gotten into the
(23:23):
situation and put our defense in a bad situation. Right,
So I think that'll be really interesting to watch, especially
you know, in this first you know month or two
months as a head coach, of how he's going to
approach different situations and how he's going to kind of
change what we've kind of been used to seeing from
this team.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
The Bears made some other hires just going a little
bit further down the list here, Antoine randall L is
the gonna be the wide receivers coach and the associate
or the assistant head coach for Ben Johnson. He's a
guy who's coming over from from Detroit. That is a
I think a we knew that that Ben was going
(24:01):
to bring somebody from Detroit. At the same time, like,
I don't think that the coaches really want to raid
their their former employer. It was probably only ever going
to be one or two guys. I think if you
can't get Hank Freeley, I think randall L is a
good a good second option.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah, it is really good, right and that that is
an that's an interesting thing they think.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
They kind of pointed out where.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Ben isn't really like plugged, like taking a lot from Detroit,
right Like he's going to New Orleans, He's going to
a lot of different trees that he's been a part of.
But being at Randall ll home obviously you know he's
stored in obviously a great success story at Indiana and
then in the NFL Super Bowl and that kind of stuff.
So it's really cool to kind of watch him bring
someone that obviously has a lot of passion for the
(24:45):
Chicago Bears, but also who's you know, considered a very
you know, a good young coach. You know, even for
him to kind of get the title of assistant coach,
I'm sure that probably plays a role in obviously him
being able to leave the Lions. But it's a really
cool you know, not only just a local story, but
someone who's really kind of you know, risen through the ranks.
And you even saw on the same Brown podcast, I
(25:08):
know you sent this to me the other day where
you know, Amara was talking about how you know, yes
he's said, you know, lose Ben Johnson, but obviously you
know Randall LL played a big role in that receiver's
room with Willie with with Jamison Williams and all that
kind of stuff. So I think, you know, if you're
DJ Moore, if you're if you're Roma Dude Day, you're
really excited for this because he's obviously been able to
(25:30):
develop a lot of good wide receivers and kind of
get the best out of them.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
And I think it matters to have some coaches on
your staff who played at the highest level, and obviously
Randell ll did that. He can he can do that.
You know, he's been in Rome shoes, He's been in
DJ's shoes. Mike Johnson in the chat says how many
coaches did the Detroit Lions lose? I mean, yeah, they've
they've been losing a bunch. I don't I don't have
(25:55):
the total in front of me. But they were able
to keep paying freely, which I think everybody saw as
a win. They were able to keep him, and you know,
he's not the offensive coordinator. You know, they they hired
somebody else. I can't I can't remember who it was.
But he did not go to Seattle either. He was
in discussion for the Seattle o C job. He stuck around.
(26:17):
Another addition that they want to hit to is Al
Harris for the Bears. He's going to be the defensive
passing game coordinator and the DB's coach. Al Harris was
a longtime Packer as a player, he was down in Dallas,
most recently working for Mike McCarthy. That seems like a
fine hire.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Yeah, they seem like good hires so far.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Right then, I think, you know, the biggest you know this,
the staff is still going to kind of come together,
and you know, I know some people might be like, well,
for how quickly the Ben Johnson thing kind of came
down and the and the OC's kind of and the
coordinators kind of came down. Is it a concern that
you know, we still don't know our O line coach.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Maybe maybe things didn't go the way you expected them to.
Maybe some people said no, right Like I, you know,
I wouldn't be too worried about it right now. But
I think the biggest thing is that we saw the Bears,
you know, take the Ben Johnson higher. They got the
top guy, and we've seen them kind of continue that
with their other hires, right like, you have the coordinators
(27:15):
you really like what they're bringing in the assistant coaches
that we are seeing come in so far, you like that.
I think you're seeing that the Bears haven't stopped at
Ben Johnson. They've major to kind of support him with
good coordinators and they're doing their due diligence to kind
of support them with good assistant coaches, which is really
good to see.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Yeah, and one one other I want to hit on,
Press Taylor is reportedly going to be the passing game coordinator.
He's another young coach, thirty seven years old. He's been
in OC. He was the OC for Jacksonville most recently,
that was his most recent role, but he came up
coaching through the you know, with the Eagles and you know,
the last seven eight years and and you know, coaching
(27:56):
various spots. He was a quarterback coach. You got to
surround your quarterback with guys who who know the position.
And I think that's a hire that's going to help
in that regard to especially when you look at, yeah,
like your your OC has not been a quarterback coach,
So you got to get some guys who not that
he doesn't know the position, but you got to get
some guys who have been uh, you know, directly coaching quarterbacks,
(28:19):
and and I don't believe we do. We have a
quarterbacks coach yet for the Bears, Michael, I don't believe.
I don't believe we do. So that's still out there,
and we don't have an offensive line coach. The reports
I saw were Ohio State O line coach Justin Fryar
and Tulane O line coach Dan Ruschar were reportedly interviewing
(28:42):
for that job. Has spent time with the Saints. He
actually worked with with Declan Doyle down there, so there's
a there's a connection there. I don't know if that
is a direction they're going to go. Friar. I don't
know a whole lot about Friar, Michael, do you know
anything about.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
The not really?
Speaker 3 (29:01):
I mean, obviously, you know, he's been very successful, you know,
at you know, at that level. And fry I think
it's fry is it fry I you know, regardless of
his last name. I think he's obviously had a lot
of success, and he's done a really good job, you know,
of developing talent, right like consistently they've been able to
(29:21):
develop talent to the NFL. And you know, I know
it's different, you know, doing it at the NFL level
and doing it at the college level. But he's proven
that he's been able to do it. And I think
that's the biggest thing I you know, I I am
interested to know Sean like obviously getting his DC, his
OC you know, we're important at the top of the list.
(29:42):
But is it concerning to you that at this point
they still don't have an O line coach, Like, does
it kind of feel like freight they were going to
get the Lions guy? He said no, and now they're
just kind of scrambling or is it kind of like well,
I mean, yeah, sure you're missing some Senior Bowl stuff
and that'd be nice to have some you know, input
with Ryan Poles, but you're not too concerned about it
(30:04):
at this point.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
No, I wouldn't be overly concerned about it. I mean, yeah,
I think everybody in the and I think all thirty
two teams would want to hire Hank Freyley if if
he's available, and you know clearly his he wanted to
still be in Detroit for the time being, and and
he did add another title that was probably a little
bump and pay too. And maybe he's a guy who's
(30:25):
going to be in OC a year from now. We'll
see what happens there. I'm not overly concerned. I would like,
look like Justin Fry has done a great job at
Ohio State. Obviously they pump out, you know, draft picks
on that offensive line, they pump out some really good players.
He hasn't done it at the NFL level. I'm the
(30:48):
offensive line is the offensive line. I understand that, Like,
I get that and the whether at any level of football,
But I do think you want to have guys with
with NFL experience. That's just kind of my my thoughts
on that, my opinion. I don't know if that matters
to them, but look, they're gonna get somebody who kind
of fits what they want to do. And at the
end of the day, Ben Johnson's building this offense, Uh,
(31:10):
he just needs an offensive line coach who who can
understand what he's trying to accomplish and and teach that
to those those players on the line.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Yeah, I would agree with that. I think they also,
you know, to put it bluntly, they need help at
that scouting part, right like, because it hasn't worked over
the past, you know, whoever ever since Ryan Pulls took
over like hopefully Ben Johnson can play a role into that.
But and he sees he obviously knows good offensive offensive
line play, and he obviously knows good traits. But this
(31:39):
is clearly something that's which ironically or not, has been
a blind spot for Ryan Polls. And I, you know,
I I'm not too concerned about him not being not
not having hired someone yet, but I do I would
like to get someone in there sooner rather than later,
because you've got to be come up with the free
agency plan. You got to come up with the plan
to be like are we going to shell out some
(32:01):
money on this center or this guard and that kind
of stuff, and then going from there with the draft.
So I'm not too concerned about it, but I do
think that it's a very important hire because that's the
one position that's, you know, other than the defensive line.
I guess that has really, you know, stymied what Ryan
Poles has wanted to build here.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
I don't necessarily think like like I'm okay with most
of the linemen that they've drafted. I just think they
need to put more resources into that, you know, like
like we've been saying since the end of the season,
you've got three picks in the top forty one. At
least two of those should be linemen in my opinion,
(32:40):
you know, it should be in the trenches. Same with like, like,
I'm okay with the Karanamagaji pick if you want to
take a flyer on a guy you're you're excited about
out of Yale, But I don't know if I would
do that with my third round pick. You know, I
think I think if you're if you're going to take
flyers on guys like Brax and Jones for example, do
that in the fifth round, you know, like do that
(33:02):
further down where it's it's more of a crapshoot anyway.
You know, I want my premium picks to be coming
from the Big ten, from the SEC, from some of
those those really high profile programs. You know, maybe maybe
that's overblown, but that's kind of where my head's at
when I'm looking at that.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yeah, like not to get on we don't need to
get into the whole whatever drafting philosophy and going over
the whole Kiron pickle over again, but like you would
Kuran felt like a pick that you make if you
have shown that you've been able to develop Lineman right, Like,
if you've been able like you saw Raxon Jones excelling
(33:38):
at a big level, Tevin Jenkins and Darnell right, you'd
be like, all right, we've been able to do it
and that kind of and we're able to develop guys
and we have a history of this where they didn't
have a history of this. So that's kind of why
you know an Ohio State guy, a Notre Dame guy, like,
I'm I'm very interested in that because clearly they can
see they can see ten at a young age, and
(34:01):
they can develop that talent, right, And that's the biggest
thing where sure you can see talent, but how do
you develop it. That's been missing from the Bears over
the past, you know, two or three years. And so
maybe hiring a college guys in the biggest isn't the
worst thing because they can evaluate talent and they can
develop and that's what you need at this point.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
I see what you're saying. I do see what you're saying,
And that would be an argument for Justin Fry, like, yeah,
maybe he's a guy who you know, obviously he's dealing
with guys who come in they're eighteen, nineteen years old
and maybe they don't play for a couple of years
and you're developing them. College coaches at the level, at
(34:41):
that type of level at Ohio State are absolutely doing that.
That's all about development. So yeah, like I hear what
you're saying. That's that's a really good point, Michael.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
Yeah, it'll be interesting just you know, even like you know,
Harry heats Stand obviously, you know, had a very long
career Notre Dame and he was a good you know,
line coach at the NFL level, Like there's been exams
up that. So it's just it'll be interesting to see
who Ben Jonson, Deckland Doyle like they decide to kind
of look into. Because not to be dramatic, but this
(35:12):
is probably one of their most important hirings, right Like,
if you're not able to develop your lineman, protest, protect
Kayleb Williams, give them time, the running back room, all
that sort of stuff, Like this whole thing kind of
falls apart. So you know, you don't really think about
the line coach being like the hire or anything like that.
And I'm not saying that, you know, it's all doom
and gloom if it doesn't work out. But this is
(35:33):
a pretty essential early higher for Ben Johnson that I
think will really dictate how well this team is able
to develop over the next three or four years.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, and and hopefully we'll have some news for you
guys in the next couple of days, sometime next week,
maybe we'll we'll find out what. Obviously, they have some
more some more roles to fill. They they did lose
a couple of coaches. Andre Curtis, the safety's coach and
uh Dave Morganzi, the linebackers coach, went with Fluse, So
they got some hires to make on that side of
(36:03):
the ball too. There they're gonna have a handful more
coaches here. Uh that that we can that we'll we'll
get to discuss and we can we can see how
this staff sort of sort of rounds itself out. One
more time. If you're with us live on YouTube, hit
the thumbs up. We would really appreciate that. Uh that's
a great way to support the show. If you're listing
on Spotify or on Apple, leave us a review. A
(36:25):
five star review would be would be a great way
to support the show. And as always, head over to
Shawlocal dot com. You can read all of our covers.
Michael's got some good stuff up there from yesterday's press conferences.
We'll have another fresh story. Uh today, I'm gonna write
something about Dennis Allen. We'll have up there, and so
(36:46):
head over to show Local dot com and please consider subscribing.
That's the number one best way to support US sports.
Chicago Style, says Bill Johnson is the defensive line coach. Yeah,
let's see what do we have on Bill Johnson.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Michael, let's take a look here. Obviously I know that
you know that's going to be a big higher. That's
a big higher for them just based on you know,
I wouldn't say that. You know, obviously Montest Sweat didn't
have the season that they wanted him to have last year.
Obviously injury played a role into that, and obviously losing
(37:23):
Andrew Billings that played a role into it too. But
you know, for how much we talk about the offensive
line and how important that's going to be, the defensive
line is also very important. Where you know, Dennis Allen
talked about being aggressive. You can only be aggressive so
much by playing good coverage, right, You got to get
after the quarterback. You gotta find guys and develop them
(37:44):
and that that that seems to be something that you know,
we're talking about offensive line development. That also seemed to
be a big problem for the Bears on the defensive
line as well, where you saw you know, them make
the tail the trade for Darryl tail Taylor. They brought
an Austin Booker, DeMarcus Walker. You saw those guys, you know,
have little glimpses here and there, but you didn't see
(38:05):
consistent performances out of them, and the pressure didn't really
become consistent at all. So you know, with Bill Johnson
that's going to be a major goal for him, just
trying to you know, other than identified talent that you
can draft and bring in, but also developing that because
you really need to get a pretty consistent pass rush
if you want this defense to succeed.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Yeah, Bill Johnson is a guy who has been around
the block. You know he is he is sixty nine,
a full uh what's that forty years older than Declan Doyle.
But they have he has a experience in that with
a He was a d line coach with the Saints
from twenty nine to sixteen. So I'm sure there's there's
(38:49):
some connections there with with Dennis Allen and shoot, when
was Dennis Allen in Uh, they would have overlapped there,
I believe. Let me just check that he came back
in twenty fifteen. Yeah, so they were there together for
a couple of seasons. Yeah, he's been all over the
(39:09):
place as a defensive line coach as as a defensive assistant.
I think that's a good experience higher and h Yeah,
obviously that's a spot that they got to get more
out of, Like you gotta get you got to have
more than than Montes sweat, you gotta have and look like, honestly,
like they haven't really been as successful developing some of
(39:30):
those guys on the back end. You know, Dominique Robinson
just hasn't really panned out. Uh, that's the biggest example
I'm thinking of. Zach Pickens has been okay, and you
know he's got a couple more years on his rookie deal.
You hope that that you can get a little bit
more out of him. That's a spot, that's a position
on that defensive line where where you hope that they
can they can get a little bit more development out
(39:52):
of it.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
You do need more development out of it because even
if you get like a little bit more out of
that group, like your secondary has proven that it can
play really good coverage like man coverage or what have you. Obviously,
you know, we've heard a million times about Kyler Gordon.
But if you can get that defensive line to perform
at like a middle even level like this defense could
(40:13):
really take a big step. So it'll be really interesting
to see Bill Johnson, you know, how he's able to
do it.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
I assume you know.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
I'm sure Dennis Allen isn't going to bring his entire
defensive staff over from New Orleans, but you'll see I'm
sure a lot of New Orleans flavor in the defense,
just based on his familiarity with the guys and just
what he was able to do with the Saints.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
All Right, we got to get out of here. Thank
you for joining us one more time. Hit the thumbs
up if you're with us here on YouTube. Thank you
guys for joining us live, and thank you if you're
listening after the fact. Like I said, head to shaw
Local dot com. You can read all of our coverage there.
Keep an eye on our Twitter pages. We will let
you know when we're gonna go live. He is Michael Dwojack.
You can find him on Twitter at m Dwojack ninety four.
(40:54):
I'm Sean Hammond. You can find me at Sean Underscore Hammonds.
This has been the Shaw Local Bears in the podcast.
Have a great weekend everybody, and thanks for listening.
Hello, and welcome to the Shaw Local Bears Insider Podcast.
Welcome back. Michael Duojack is here with me. I'm Sean Hammon.
We are back for yet another episode of the Shaw
Local Bears Insider Podcast. Thanks for joining us. If you're
with us live here, do us a favor. Hit the
thumbs up on YouTube. I don't know there there it is.
(00:22):
There is my thumb. You know, you got to get
the angle right. If you're listening on Apple or Spotify,
you don't know what we're talking about, but there is
a thumb on the screen. And also if you're listening
on Apple and Spotify, come join us. Keep an eye
on our Twitter pages. We will let you know when
we're gonna go live. Thank you for joining us. We
talked to the new Bears coordinators. Obviously, that's been the
(00:44):
news since we last met with you guys a week ago.
The Bears hired Dennis Allen as defensive coordinator, which had
kind of been on everybody's radar since Ben Johnson was hired,
but that became official. They hired twenty eight year old
Decklan Doyle as their offensive coordinator, and now everybody knows
that Ben Johnson's really the guy running the offense, and
(01:06):
he's gonna be the one calling plays. But Declan Doyle,
twenty eight years old, joins the staff as the offensive coordinator,
and the Bears kept Richard high Tower as special teams coordinator.
He was there for three years under Fluse. He previously
held that role for Kyle Shanahan and San Francisco, so
he's sticking around too. Those are your three, your your
big coordinators. There your your three big coordinators. Obviously, I
(01:29):
know some other guys there's passing game coordinators and all
that stuff, but those are the big ones. Michael. We
got to talk to them yesterday. What what big picture?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
What kind of stood out for you big picture?
Speaker 3 (01:39):
There's a coach younger than me in the NFL and
that kind of is tough to swallow, but we'll just
deal with it. But no, it seems like everyone, you know,
everyone kind of knew what the assignment is, right Like
if Dennis Allen knew like he's gonna he emphasized like
he's now looking ahead or anything like that. He talked
about not looking to be a head coach, and he's
(02:01):
there to you know, obviously run a really good defense,
but he's there to be a sounding board for for
Ben Johnson. And that seems really important just to kind of,
you know, kind of mention that because you know, he
has head coaching experience, so he understood that. Deckln Doyle
understood what his job and that's going to be you know,
a big scout for uh, for Ben Johnson, getting him
a good start, and you know, even Richard high Tower,
(02:23):
you know, talked about, you know, why he wanted to
stay on and special teams and you know the aggressive
nature of Ben Johnson. It just seemed like everyone is
really bought into what their job is going to be
under Ben Johnson. I think that's the biggest thing where
sometimes you'll get some personalities. Sometimes you'll get some guys
who are kind of like, well they're trying to you know,
(02:45):
prove themselves and that kind of stuff where it seems
like all three guys know what they need to be
doing in order for this whole thing to succeed. And
at least at the first impressions on Thursday, it was
kind of like everyone knows what they're expecting to do
in order to make this thing be a s sessible
as possible. And you kind of heard a lot of
that when we were meeting with them on Thursday.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah, these are these are going to be the right
hand men, so to speak, for for Ben Johnson, I
think Dennis Allen Is is an interesting one. You brought
it up an episode or two ago, Michael. You know,
he's he's been a head coach twice. Not a whole
lot of guys get three chances at that, and he's
(03:25):
probably gonna be sticking around, like you can you can
you know, push him over on that defensive side and
say you deal with that. You know, you get those
guys playing well, and Ben Johnson can can you know,
sleep easy at night knowing that, like his defense is
in good hands. This is a guy who was Sean
Payton's defensive coordinator for seven years in New Orleans, in
(03:45):
between his stints as as a head coach with the
Raiders and with the Saints. They run the same the
same base defense, the four to three scheme that that
Matt Eberflus did, or at least a similar type of defense.
I know that that good defenses in in the NFL
have to do multiple things, and that's always going to
be the case, I think from here on out. But
(04:07):
I mean Dennis Allen, Saints' defenses were pretty good. I mean,
I know, obviously seven years there's ups and downs, but
there were a couple of years there twenty twenty, twenty
twenty one where where they were top five in a
number of different categories, I feel like. And he was asked,
you know, about the guys on the team, of course,
and he brought up some guys. It's interesting that both
(04:30):
Dennis Allen and Ben Johnson, maybe because they were talking together,
but they both mentioned Kyler Gordon as a player that
they really like. There's some good pieces there, and I
think that he's going to be able to do good
things for this defense.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah, I think he'll be really good for this defense.
Like you said, you know, I had my five interesting
things that they said yesterday where you know, Dennis Allen
when he took over the Saints as a d C
second time around to twenty fifteen, you know, they were
bottom in most categories, defensive categories, and then you know,
around twenty two and twenty one, twenty two, they're top five,
(05:03):
top ten, and then obviously they're in the top half
in twenty twenty three, and then things took a little
bit of a turn obviously last year and he got fired.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
But yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
He's been proven to show you that he can, you know,
he can build defenses. He can he's aggressive, obviously, that's
what he talked about. You know, he's going to be
an aggressive style. I thought one of the more interesting
things he kind of talked about was and I think
we've known this for a while, but he really shouted
out the secondary, right, Like obviously he talked about Tyler Gordon,
but he talked about how he liked the length of
(05:34):
the coroners and that kind of stuff and how much
that can really help him in man coverage and you know,
their versatility and the kind of stuff. And I thought
it was also interesting that he said he likes what
they have or like he thinks there are good pieces
on the linebacker position in that the defensive line. And
when he was asked about, you know, adding on, he said,
you know, our job is to develop, but we're also
(05:57):
you know, going to see what's out there. And I
thought that was really interesting to see. You know, how
much how much turnover is this defense going to have?
You know what I mean, Like it seems like the
secondary is pretty much going to be the secondary Obviously
we need to see what Jakwan Brisker is going to do.
Is Kyli Gordon going to get an extension and that
kind of stuff. But I think it's interesting that he
said that he likes what the linebackers and the defensive
(06:19):
line has. And I'm sure that's Montest sweat. I'm sure
that's TJ. Edwards, but I'm curious to see he's He
was pretty vocal about saying like they're going to be
changes if we want, like working with Ryan to make changes.
And I'm curious to see what that is when it
comes to, you know, fitting his more aggressive style of defense.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yeah, And and I think that that aggressive is is
going to be like a word we hear a lot
with Ben Jonson Steen, whether we're talking about going for
it on fourth down, whether we're talking about the defense. Uh,
you know, looking back at Dennis Allen's defenses in New Orleans,
like there were some years where they had really high
(06:57):
blitz rates in some years where they where they didn't,
And so like, I really do think it's kind of
that ebb and flow of like you know, what do
you have at your disposal? Like what players can do,
who's good at what and that's really what Ben Johnson
was talking about on the offensive side too, is like
you got to put your players in in the best
position to succeed. And yeah, clearly they need to add
(07:19):
some you know, we all know that they need to
add another edge rusher. Yeah, to health Montest sweat out.
We all know that that. When Andrew Billings went down
last year, that, as Ben Johnson said, like that changed
everything for the defense. And I think you need you
need a real solid backup plan. Obviously you need Andrew
Billings back healthy and he should be, but you need
(07:40):
a backup plan too, because you can't just have one
guy get hurt and then everything falls apart for that
defensive line, right.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
I think the biggest thing is just you know, he said,
you know, he likes the foundation, Like that's one of
the bigger things about why he was attracted to this job.
Obviously he was looking at other defensive coordinator positions and
obviously the foundation is there for the Bears, and I
think that's the biggest thing. And now it's just trying
to you know, kind of mold it into what he
wants it to be. And you know that's going to
(08:07):
be a little bit different I'm sure from what Mattyberflus ran,
but it'll be fairly similar. I'm sure, you know, we'll
see he was asked about blitzing. Obviously, he kind of
re emphasized what Ben Johnson talked about, you know, the
shifting dynamics and the importance of the quarterback, and you
know how important the quarterback position is in today's NFL.
And you know, he talked about like you need to
(08:28):
get after the quarterback right, like you need to be
aggressive toward it. So that that was a really interesting
thing and something that I think will be once we
move a little bit further here when it comes to
free agency and the draft. Is is finding someone opposite
of Montest Sweat going to be a major storyline? Is
switching out what you have in linebacker going to be that?
So those are just all really interesting, you know, details
(08:51):
into what we can expect this defense to look like.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
I see you guys in the chat. Thanks for joining us,
Thanks for hopping on getting your thoughts in. Rick says
he really hopes Brisker can play next year. Let's see,
maybe moves Smitty to safety. I mean, they really like
him as a corner. I don't know they really do
seem to like him. But yeah, obviously you got you
(09:16):
got a bunch of really good corners, and he's a
guy you probably want to get on the field.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Let's see what else we got. H If you guys
have any other bears, thoughts, bears questions, drop them in
the chat. We will throw them on the screen. We
will discuss while we're talking defense. Michael, I didn't have
this on our list of things to hit, but Matt eberflush,
he's got a job. You've got a job this week.
He's going down to Dallas to be the defensive coordinator
back where he coached for I think it was seven
(09:42):
years as a as a position coach. My thoughts on
that are are okay, you know, good for him. Obviously
he can coach a defense. We know that. We'll we'll see,
we'll see how all that all that's that Cowboys stuff goes.
Because I know it's been a really weird couple of
weeks for them.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Yeah, I think that again serves as a remind We
kind of talked about this last week, but I think
this again serves as a reminder of how worse things
could be. Right, Like, I know many Cowboys fans who
are super excited about their head coaching hiring. You know,
Mandy Berfluce has always been a good DC, so I'm
sure he'll do good. Well, yeah, there, But I think
the whole situation in Jacksonville, the whole situation in Dell's
(10:24):
that's just a good reminder where I think we all
gave the Bears a little bit of a hard time
with their wide, raging start, seventeen candidates or whatever, but
at the end of the day they ended up with.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
The front runner and Ben Jonson.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Then I you know, I think things could be a
lot worse in a lot of different scenarios for the Bears.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Michael, did we talk about this already on the show,
Liam Cohen, your guy Liam Cohen and conference.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
We did not do vaal right, But again, my biggest
thing is do not do acronyms and do not do
like just have be normal, right, like the is that
so hard to do when doing in the introductory press conference?
Just be like a normal person, like interact like you
would interact with everyone else. And again that goes to
what we talked about last week, right where it's like,
(11:09):
does winning the press conference really mean anything? But then
you watch like Ben Johnson, Yeah, like a normal person
in his intro press conference, like answer questions and you know,
throw some subtle digs in there and like jokes or whatever.
And then you're watching these other coaches and you're like, oh, geez,
like what what they like?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Who told you this was a good idea? Like what
what it's like?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
It's just again, like things can be much worse, right,
So I think things are looking pretty good for the
Bears at this point.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Look, Liam Cohen did a did a nice job in Tampa.
He did a nice job with Baker Mayfield. He might
be a good head coach in the NFL. We'll see.
I'm just saying I have my doubts after after seeing,
uh what's what's transpired early on there in Jacksonville.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Also is Ian cunning hand to GM. Yet I was
told at the beginning of the week that it was
imminent and obviously that's still work in progress.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Yeah, I mean, man, you could do a whole. The
Jaguars are just like this whole. You can do a
whole like seminar on what not to do, uh when
you're when you're hiring a head coach, and and it's
just weird that that you got the head coach first
and now you're trying to backfill the GM spot. I
don't know they handled the whole. The Jaguars and the
Cowboys just did this all wrong.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
And and I think if you're a Bears fan, you're
you're happy to watch and maybe giggle from afar and say, hey,
at least that's not our team this time.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah it is. It is funny.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
And I saw Rick, you know, saying that you know,
in Cunningham can go, you'll get a couple of third
round picks.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
I don't know he was.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
He was with Ryan Pulls at the Senior Bowl this week, right,
So yeah, I mean, you see, it depends on the
Jacksonville timeline. But I remember, you know, Ryan talking about
how like he'll let Ian like go through the process,
like he's not gonna take him away from that. So
I'm wonder if that means anything, whether that means like
he they're moving on in a different position, or I
wonder if that means like, hey, like you're still working
(13:00):
for us and we don't know what you're doing, so
you might as well come out with Ryan and check
out some linemen.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Well, and in some ways. Now they have the same
We don't need to talk about the Jags that long,
but now they have the same problem where like they're
trying to find a GM and you got to say, Okay,
well you got to work with this coach that we
just hired, and maybe they have a relationship. Probably not,
you know, like it's hard to They just found out
how hard that was to do with a GM that
(13:27):
nobody seemed to like. Not saying that nobody likes Liam Cohen.
He's you know, a weird press conference society seems fine,
somebody will eventually take the job, but that I would
think would make it a little bit harder. Shifting gears
back to back to Bear's land here, we had not
really nobody had heard of Declan Doyle very much until
(13:50):
the other night when or last weekend when that was
first reported that he was interviewing twenty eight year old
Declan Doyle, Bear's offensive coordinator Michael He's young, obviously, but
I don't I don't know that that should matter all
that much if he can do the job right.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
No, and that's the biggest Like he is young.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
He didn't have a Wikipedia page until until he got
hired by the Bears or you know, reportedly hired by
the Bears. But he's not going to be the playmate,
play caller, right like the he Ben Johnson talked about
this last week and Ducklin kind of reiterated this week
where he's just gonna for lack of a better term,
And I'm not trying to disparage him or like look
down on his role, but he's basically going to be
(14:31):
a glorified scout, right Like he's going to be like
looking into all the different details that Ben Johnson won't
have the time to do because he's taken on head
coaching responsibilities, right And you know, from what we've seen,
like Ducklin seems like a really you know, intelligent guy.
He's been you know, for being so young, he's been
around NFL circles for a lot a while now, and
(14:53):
he learned from one of the best, right, Like he's
been with Sean Payton in New Orleans and in Denver.
And I think one of the bigger interesting things is
he's seen this process work, right, like with Sean Payton
in New Orleans. Obviously, Champagne is the head coach, but
he's also the play collar and he did that in
Denver too, and he's watched how Sean Payton and his
(15:14):
ocs have kind of, you know, split up the responsibilities
and kind of split up listen, like this is what
you need to do, this is what you need to
be looking for, and that kind of stuff. So I
think it's beneficial to have someone like that where obviously
you have the New Orleans connection, and you have someone
that you know, obviously Sean Payne and things a lot
about it at such a young age, but you also
have someone who's seen who's who's seen it done before
(15:36):
and seen it done well. And I think that's the
biggest thing where you know, you have the groundwork from
what it can work. And he talked about how you're
gonna have to morphit a little bit. It'll be different
with with what him and Ben want to do. But
you know, for yes, he's young, but he's seen someone
who can do it. And I think that's a really
important part of, you know, making this relationship work.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
This is a young coach who is hungry, who wants
to prove himself. Who who you know. He went to
Iowa as a student assistant coach and and basically, like
like you said, like he said yesterday, you know, did
all the stuff that nobody wanted to do. Like that's
that's your role when you're a student assistant and you
you move on to a quality control job in the
(16:16):
NFL in New Orleans, same thing, You're doing all the
stuff that nobody wants to do. You're you're you're prepping,
you know, the you're watching film on the opponent for
for next week. You're getting all that stuff ready. You're
you're maybe doing the nitty gritty game planning or even
just like drawing up the plays. You know, some somebody's
gonna be be the one to draw that stuff up
(16:38):
and and and distributed to the players and all that stuff.
And and then he moves to to Denver. He's a
you know, a promotion. He's the tight ends coach. Now
he's really got, you know, a hands on opportunity to
coach a position. And again, like coming to Chicago, obviously
as a coordinator, you have a lot more responsibilities. You
are in charge of half the team rough you know, basically, Yeah,
(17:02):
but in some ways it's it's similar where like he's
doing the stuff that Ben Johnson won't have time for
because Ben's going to have all these different things pull
tugging at him as he's the head coach. We all
know how that goes. I gotta imagine it was. It
was hard for Matt Eberfluse, you know, when he was
having when he was forced back into calling plays in
(17:23):
twenty twenty three because of the circumstances with the coaching staff,
and then again like this season, like that's a lot
of responsibility and and you got to have somebody you
can lean on. And I think that Ben Johnson sees
might maybe see a little bit of himself in this guy,
just because he's a younger coach, He's he's studied the
offensive side of the football. And for Declan Doyle, I
(17:46):
mean this is this is an awesome opportunity to learn
from like a really really great offensive mine. I don't
know why you would would turn that down.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Yeah, and it you know, I could hear the argument
of people being like, well, you know, out covet of
a job, would it be? Because you know, Ben Johnson's
obviously going to be the play caller, right, Like you're
not going to be involved in that, But you still
get a chance to work with Caleb Williams. You still
get a chance to learn from Ben Johnson. And I
think that's the biggest thing, right, Like, it's a really
cool opportunity, especially for Ducklin at such a young age,
(18:17):
to kind of get a lot of experience, learn like
what Ben Johnson sees, how he comes up with these
crazy plays, what is what his offensive philosophy is. And
I think that'll be really big. And I think another
important factor will be, you know, he mentioned, uh, you know,
he he was around you know, bon Nicks last year
when he watched when he watched cham Payne and to
(18:38):
kind of help develop him in that.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
And I think.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
That was a big thing too, where he talked about
how you know, they they made like they did things
offensively that they hadn't done before in New Orleans and
Denver to to put bone Nicks in the spot to succeed, right,
And that's something you didn't see with the Bears and
Caleb Williams. Where it felt like with Caleb Bill is
like this is Shane Waldron's offense. This is like, you know,
(19:02):
Sean mcvay's offense, This is how we do stuff. And
there wasn't like a lot of like I'm sure there
were adjustments, but there weren't like overt adjustments to help
Caleb succeed, and you saw that with with bo Nix
and Denver, so it'll be interesting to see, you know,
how much of a role he plays in Caleb's development too,
right where, Yes, everyone's gonna look at you know, Ben
(19:22):
Johnson and Caleb Williams and they're going to be attached
at the hip, but I mean Declan's also going to
be a major part of that, and he's going to
be a big part of Caleb's development and helping putting
him in the space to succeed.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Yeah, absolutely, that's yes, He's going to be a big
part of that. I don't want to downplay I know
I'm saying, like we're both kind of saying. He's going
to do the things that Ben Johnson doesn't have time for.
But he's going to be a huge part in what
this offense looks like. And he's a guy who has
has put in the time study in the game of
football over the last ten years. From from everything that
we've heard about him up to this point. The third coordinator,
(19:59):
Richard Hideo sticking around. Richard is a really nice dude,
and I'm glad that we still get to interview him
and he gets to hang out with us once a week.
I mean, I for me, like, I think the maybe
lack of aggressiveness on special teams sometimes was more of
a fluse thing than a Richard high tower thing. I
(20:21):
don't know. I'm fine with them keeping him. I think
he knows the roster really well. I think he knows
the guys. I think he would have you know, he
would get a special teams coordinator position if the Bears
let him go. I think he is an asset and
so I'm totally fine with them keeping him.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Yeah, and you know, he special teams was never really
reason for why this team wasn't succeeding, right, Like, it
was never like, oh, like, we're not doing well in
that regarded. You can get into the into the whole
Cairo Santos thing, you can get into all that sort
of stuff. But special teams wasn't why this team was losing.
And it's good to have a presence who's kind of
(20:58):
been around and as well could around the league. Right
And I think the most interesting from our time with
Richard yesterday was unprompted, he brought up how aggressive you
know Ben Johnson is and how much being aggressive on
special teams influences the other phases of the game, right,
And I think that's really something that was really encouraging
for you know, high power where you know, there are
(21:20):
some times where you're kind of like, man, you should
really go for it. You should be more aggressive, you
know in the special teams. You should have a play
call like they did in against the Green Bay Packers
at the end of the year with that fake kickoff, right, Like,
you should do more of that kind of thing stuff
to help yourself and your other phases succeed and keep
your defense off the field or like help your offense
with better field positioning.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
So it seemed really cool.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Just to kind of see all the coordinators talk about,
you know, really liking Ben Johnson's style, in his aggressive style,
and I think it's going to be I think that's
the biggest thing where that's going to be very different
from what we saw with Maddy reflucing the Bears over
the past few years, where they're gonna be much more
aggressive and kind of doing things differently than we're used
to seeing them watching them, you know, based on what
we've seen, you know into playoffs here a more aggressive
(22:07):
NFL than we're kind.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Of used to.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yeah, I mean, look, this is it's getting aggressive in
those situations. All all these teams, you know, the Lions,
the Commanders, these teams that are having a lot of
success are doing it that way. I really do think
that the Bears are going under Ben Johnson are going
to do that and take that similar. We're talking about
a guy who was you know, studied math in computer
(22:29):
science in college. Talking about Ben Johnson, like he he
understands where the advantages are and where you can maybe
get you know, a five percent better chance to win
or whatever. You see all those tweets about the you know,
chances of winning if you go for it here, blah
blah blah. Like he gets all that stuff. And and
I think that he seems to have a good balance
(22:51):
of like getting that but also reading the room and
like understanding his players and and you know that's there's
people that play the you know, it's not just a
computer program.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Yeah, and yeah, that seems to be the big thing
where I feel like maybe Dan Campbell wasn't too aggressive.
I mean maybe there's some times obviously you've seen that
kind of bagfire on him, but I think, you know,
Ben Johnson has seen the good stuff or the benefits
of going for it, but he's also seen the bad
stuff of like we probably shouldn't have gotten into the
(23:23):
situation and put our defense in a bad situation. Right,
So I think that'll be really interesting to watch, especially
you know, in this first you know month or two
months as a head coach, of how he's going to
approach different situations and how he's going to kind of
change what we've kind of been used to seeing from
this team.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
The Bears made some other hires just going a little
bit further down the list here, Antoine randall L is
the gonna be the wide receivers coach and the associate
or the assistant head coach for Ben Johnson. He's a
guy who's coming over from from Detroit. That is a
I think a we knew that that Ben was going
(24:01):
to bring somebody from Detroit. At the same time, like,
I don't think that the coaches really want to raid
their their former employer. It was probably only ever going
to be one or two guys. I think if you
can't get Hank Freeley, I think randall L is a
good a good second option.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah, it is really good, right and that that is
an that's an interesting thing they think.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
They kind of pointed out where.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Ben isn't really like plugged, like taking a lot from Detroit,
right Like he's going to New Orleans, He's going to
a lot of different trees that he's been a part of.
But being at Randall ll home obviously you know he's
stored in obviously a great success story at Indiana and
then in the NFL Super Bowl and that kind of stuff.
So it's really cool to kind of watch him bring
someone that obviously has a lot of passion for the
(24:45):
Chicago Bears, but also who's you know, considered a very
you know, a good young coach. You know, even for
him to kind of get the title of assistant coach,
I'm sure that probably plays a role in obviously him
being able to leave the Lions. But it's a really
cool you know, not only just a local story, but
someone who's really kind of you know, risen through the ranks.
And you even saw on the same Brown podcast, I
(25:08):
know you sent this to me the other day where
you know, Amara was talking about how you know, yes
he's said, you know, lose Ben Johnson, but obviously you
know Randall LL played a big role in that receiver's
room with Willie with with Jamison Williams and all that
kind of stuff. So I think, you know, if you're
DJ Moore, if you're if you're Roma Dude Day, you're
really excited for this because he's obviously been able to
(25:30):
develop a lot of good wide receivers and kind of
get the best out of them.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
And I think it matters to have some coaches on
your staff who played at the highest level, and obviously
Randell ll did that. He can he can do that.
You know, he's been in Rome shoes, He's been in
DJ's shoes. Mike Johnson in the chat says how many
coaches did the Detroit Lions lose? I mean, yeah, they've
they've been losing a bunch. I don't I don't have
(25:55):
the total in front of me. But they were able
to keep paying freely, which I think everybody saw as
a win. They were able to keep him, and you know,
he's not the offensive coordinator. You know, they they hired
somebody else. I can't I can't remember who it was.
But he did not go to Seattle either. He was
in discussion for the Seattle o C job. He stuck around.
(26:17):
Another addition that they want to hit to is Al
Harris for the Bears. He's going to be the defensive
passing game coordinator and the DB's coach. Al Harris was
a longtime Packer as a player, he was down in Dallas,
most recently working for Mike McCarthy. That seems like a
fine hire.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Yeah, they seem like good hires so far.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Right then, I think, you know, the biggest you know this,
the staff is still going to kind of come together,
and you know, I know some people might be like, well,
for how quickly the Ben Johnson thing kind of came
down and the and the OC's kind of and the
coordinators kind of came down. Is it a concern that
you know, we still don't know our O line coach.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Maybe maybe things didn't go the way you expected them to.
Maybe some people said no, right Like I, you know,
I wouldn't be too worried about it right now. But
I think the biggest thing is that we saw the Bears,
you know, take the Ben Johnson higher. They got the
top guy, and we've seen them kind of continue that
with their other hires, right like, you have the coordinators
(27:15):
you really like what they're bringing in the assistant coaches
that we are seeing come in so far, you like that.
I think you're seeing that the Bears haven't stopped at
Ben Johnson. They've major to kind of support him with
good coordinators and they're doing their due diligence to kind
of support them with good assistant coaches, which is really
good to see.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Yeah, and one one other I want to hit on,
Press Taylor is reportedly going to be the passing game coordinator.
He's another young coach, thirty seven years old. He's been
in OC. He was the OC for Jacksonville most recently,
that was his most recent role, but he came up
coaching through the you know, with the Eagles and you know,
the last seven eight years and and you know, coaching
(27:56):
various spots. He was a quarterback coach. You got to
surround your quarterback with guys who who know the position.
And I think that's a hire that's going to help
in that regard to especially when you look at, yeah,
like your your OC has not been a quarterback coach,
So you got to get some guys who not that
he doesn't know the position, but you got to get
some guys who have been uh, you know, directly coaching quarterbacks,
(28:19):
and and I don't believe we do. We have a
quarterbacks coach yet for the Bears, Michael, I don't believe.
I don't believe we do. So that's still out there,
and we don't have an offensive line coach. The reports
I saw were Ohio State O line coach Justin Fryar
and Tulane O line coach Dan Ruschar were reportedly interviewing
(28:42):
for that job. Has spent time with the Saints. He
actually worked with with Declan Doyle down there, so there's
a there's a connection there. I don't know if that
is a direction they're going to go. Friar. I don't
know a whole lot about Friar, Michael, do you know
anything about.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
The not really?
Speaker 3 (29:01):
I mean, obviously, you know, he's been very successful, you know,
at you know, at that level. And fry I think
it's fry is it fry I you know, regardless of
his last name. I think he's obviously had a lot
of success, and he's done a really good job, you know,
of developing talent, right like consistently they've been able to
(29:21):
develop talent to the NFL. And you know, I know
it's different, you know, doing it at the NFL level
and doing it at the college level. But he's proven
that he's been able to do it. And I think
that's the biggest thing I you know, I I am
interested to know Sean like obviously getting his DC, his
OC you know, we're important at the top of the list.
(29:42):
But is it concerning to you that at this point
they still don't have an O line coach, Like, does
it kind of feel like freight they were going to
get the Lions guy? He said no, and now they're
just kind of scrambling or is it kind of like well,
I mean, yeah, sure you're missing some Senior Bowl stuff
and that'd be nice to have some you know, input
with Ryan Poles, but you're not too concerned about it
(30:04):
at this point.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
No, I wouldn't be overly concerned about it. I mean, yeah,
I think everybody in the and I think all thirty
two teams would want to hire Hank Freyley if if
he's available, and you know clearly his he wanted to
still be in Detroit for the time being, and and
he did add another title that was probably a little
bump and pay too. And maybe he's a guy who's
(30:25):
going to be in OC a year from now. We'll
see what happens there. I'm not overly concerned. I would like,
look like Justin Fry has done a great job at
Ohio State. Obviously they pump out, you know, draft picks
on that offensive line, they pump out some really good players.
He hasn't done it at the NFL level. I'm the
(30:48):
offensive line is the offensive line. I understand that, Like,
I get that and the whether at any level of football,
But I do think you want to have guys with
with NFL experience. That's just kind of my my thoughts
on that, my opinion. I don't know if that matters
to them, but look, they're gonna get somebody who kind
of fits what they want to do. And at the
end of the day, Ben Johnson's building this offense, Uh,
(31:10):
he just needs an offensive line coach who who can
understand what he's trying to accomplish and and teach that
to those those players on the line.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Yeah, I would agree with that. I think they also,
you know, to put it bluntly, they need help at
that scouting part, right like, because it hasn't worked over
the past, you know, whoever ever since Ryan Pulls took
over like hopefully Ben Johnson can play a role into that.
But and he sees he obviously knows good offensive offensive
line play, and he obviously knows good traits. But this
(31:39):
is clearly something that's which ironically or not, has been
a blind spot for Ryan Polls. And I, you know,
I I'm not too concerned about him not being not
not having hired someone yet, but I do I would
like to get someone in there sooner rather than later,
because you've got to be come up with the free
agency plan. You got to come up with the plan
to be like are we going to shell out some
(32:01):
money on this center or this guard and that kind
of stuff, and then going from there with the draft.
So I'm not too concerned about it, but I do
think that it's a very important hire because that's the
one position that's, you know, other than the defensive line.
I guess that has really, you know, stymied what Ryan
Poles has wanted to build here.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
I don't necessarily think like like I'm okay with most
of the linemen that they've drafted. I just think they
need to put more resources into that, you know, like
like we've been saying since the end of the season,
you've got three picks in the top forty one. At
least two of those should be linemen in my opinion,
(32:40):
you know, it should be in the trenches. Same with like, like,
I'm okay with the Karanamagaji pick if you want to
take a flyer on a guy you're you're excited about
out of Yale, But I don't know if I would
do that with my third round pick. You know, I
think I think if you're if you're going to take
flyers on guys like Brax and Jones for example, do
that in the fifth round, you know, like do that
(33:02):
further down where it's it's more of a crapshoot anyway.
You know, I want my premium picks to be coming
from the Big ten, from the SEC, from some of
those those really high profile programs. You know, maybe maybe
that's overblown, but that's kind of where my head's at
when I'm looking at that.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yeah, like not to get on we don't need to
get into the whole whatever drafting philosophy and going over
the whole Kiron pickle over again, but like you would
Kuran felt like a pick that you make if you
have shown that you've been able to develop Lineman right, Like,
if you've been able like you saw Raxon Jones excelling
(33:38):
at a big level, Tevin Jenkins and Darnell right, you'd
be like, all right, we've been able to do it
and that kind of and we're able to develop guys
and we have a history of this where they didn't
have a history of this. So that's kind of why
you know an Ohio State guy, a Notre Dame guy, like,
I'm I'm very interested in that because clearly they can
see they can see ten at a young age, and
(34:01):
they can develop that talent, right, And that's the biggest
thing where sure you can see talent, but how do
you develop it. That's been missing from the Bears over
the past, you know, two or three years. And so
maybe hiring a college guys in the biggest isn't the
worst thing because they can evaluate talent and they can
develop and that's what you need at this point.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
I see what you're saying. I do see what you're saying,
And that would be an argument for Justin Fry, like, yeah,
maybe he's a guy who you know, obviously he's dealing
with guys who come in they're eighteen, nineteen years old
and maybe they don't play for a couple of years
and you're developing them. College coaches at the level, at
(34:41):
that type of level at Ohio State are absolutely doing that.
That's all about development. So yeah, like I hear what
you're saying. That's that's a really good point, Michael.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
Yeah, it'll be interesting just you know, even like you know,
Harry heats Stand obviously, you know, had a very long
career Notre Dame and he was a good you know,
line coach at the NFL level, Like there's been exams
up that. So it's just it'll be interesting to see
who Ben Jonson, Deckland Doyle like they decide to kind
of look into. Because not to be dramatic, but this
(35:12):
is probably one of their most important hirings, right Like,
if you're not able to develop your lineman, protest, protect
Kayleb Williams, give them time, the running back room, all
that sort of stuff, Like this whole thing kind of
falls apart. So you know, you don't really think about
the line coach being like the hire or anything like that.
And I'm not saying that, you know, it's all doom
and gloom if it doesn't work out. But this is
(35:33):
a pretty essential early higher for Ben Johnson that I
think will really dictate how well this team is able
to develop over the next three or four years.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, and and hopefully we'll have some news for you
guys in the next couple of days, sometime next week,
maybe we'll we'll find out what. Obviously, they have some
more some more roles to fill. They they did lose
a couple of coaches. Andre Curtis, the safety's coach and
uh Dave Morganzi, the linebackers coach, went with Fluse, So
they got some hires to make on that side of
(36:03):
the ball too. There they're gonna have a handful more
coaches here. Uh that that we can that we'll we'll
get to discuss and we can we can see how
this staff sort of sort of rounds itself out. One
more time. If you're with us live on YouTube, hit
the thumbs up. We would really appreciate that. Uh that's
a great way to support the show. If you're listing
on Spotify or on Apple, leave us a review. A
(36:25):
five star review would be would be a great way
to support the show. And as always, head over to
Shawlocal dot com. You can read all of our covers.
Michael's got some good stuff up there from yesterday's press conferences.
We'll have another fresh story. Uh today, I'm gonna write
something about Dennis Allen. We'll have up there, and so
(36:46):
head over to show Local dot com and please consider subscribing.
That's the number one best way to support US sports.
Chicago Style, says Bill Johnson is the defensive line coach. Yeah,
let's see what do we have on Bill Johnson.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Michael, let's take a look here. Obviously I know that
you know that's going to be a big higher. That's
a big higher for them just based on you know,
I wouldn't say that. You know, obviously Montest Sweat didn't
have the season that they wanted him to have last year.
Obviously injury played a role into that, and obviously losing
(37:23):
Andrew Billings that played a role into it too. But
you know, for how much we talk about the offensive
line and how important that's going to be, the defensive
line is also very important. Where you know, Dennis Allen
talked about being aggressive. You can only be aggressive so
much by playing good coverage, right, You got to get
after the quarterback. You gotta find guys and develop them
(37:44):
and that that that seems to be something that you know,
we're talking about offensive line development. That also seemed to
be a big problem for the Bears on the defensive
line as well, where you saw you know, them make
the tail the trade for Darryl tail Taylor. They brought
an Austin Booker, DeMarcus Walker. You saw those guys, you know,
have little glimpses here and there, but you didn't see
(38:05):
consistent performances out of them, and the pressure didn't really
become consistent at all. So you know, with Bill Johnson
that's going to be a major goal for him, just
trying to you know, other than identified talent that you
can draft and bring in, but also developing that because
you really need to get a pretty consistent pass rush
if you want this defense to succeed.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Yeah, Bill Johnson is a guy who has been around
the block. You know he is he is sixty nine,
a full uh what's that forty years older than Declan Doyle.
But they have he has a experience in that with
a He was a d line coach with the Saints
from twenty nine to sixteen. So I'm sure there's there's
(38:49):
some connections there with with Dennis Allen and shoot, when
was Dennis Allen in Uh, they would have overlapped there,
I believe. Let me just check that he came back
in twenty fifteen. Yeah, so they were there together for
a couple of seasons. Yeah, he's been all over the
(39:09):
place as a defensive line coach as as a defensive assistant.
I think that's a good experience higher and h Yeah,
obviously that's a spot that they got to get more
out of, Like you gotta get you got to have
more than than Montes sweat, you gotta have and look like, honestly,
like they haven't really been as successful developing some of
(39:30):
those guys on the back end. You know, Dominique Robinson
just hasn't really panned out. Uh, that's the biggest example
I'm thinking of. Zach Pickens has been okay, and you
know he's got a couple more years on his rookie deal.
You hope that that you can get a little bit
more out of him. That's a spot, that's a position
on that defensive line where where you hope that they
can they can get a little bit more development out
(39:52):
of it.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
You do need more development out of it because even
if you get like a little bit more out of
that group, like your secondary has proven that it can
play really good coverage like man coverage or what have you. Obviously,
you know, we've heard a million times about Kyler Gordon.
But if you can get that defensive line to perform
at like a middle even level like this defense could
(40:13):
really take a big step. So it'll be really interesting
to see Bill Johnson, you know, how he's able to
do it.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
I assume you know.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
I'm sure Dennis Allen isn't going to bring his entire
defensive staff over from New Orleans, but you'll see I'm
sure a lot of New Orleans flavor in the defense,
just based on his familiarity with the guys and just
what he was able to do with the Saints.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
All Right, we got to get out of here. Thank
you for joining us one more time. Hit the thumbs
up if you're with us here on YouTube. Thank you
guys for joining us live, and thank you if you're
listening after the fact. Like I said, head to shaw
Local dot com. You can read all of our coverage there.
Keep an eye on our Twitter pages. We will let
you know when we're gonna go live. He is Michael Dwojack.
You can find him on Twitter at m Dwojack ninety four.
(40:54):
I'm Sean Hammond. You can find me at Sean Underscore Hammonds.
This has been the Shaw Local Bears in the podcast.
Have a great weekend everybody, and thanks for listening.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.