Bears Coach Ben Johnson Catches Heat For What He Did Between Quarters
The Chicago Bears hung on for a narrow 25-24 victory on the road at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Sunday, handing the Raiders their third loss in the season’s first four games, and dropping their home record to 0-2. The Bears, meanwhile evened things up for themselves at 2-2 with the 800th win franchise history.
That total ranks second the NFL annals, topped only the 812 won by the Green Bay Packers, and makes Chicago only the second team in NFL history to win at least 800 games on the gridiron.
This win was made possible by cornerback Josh Blackwell who executed the most important special teams play of the Bears’ season, when he blocked a 54-yard field goal try by Las Vegas kicker Daniel Carlson with just 38 seconds remaining in the game.
The field goal would have put the Raiders ahead by two points and almost certainly sealed a Las Vegas “W.”
Johnson in Trouble For Contentious Sideline Interview
Bears head coach Ben Johnson called the victory “a huge character win for our team,” but it was Johnson’s own character than was called into question in the game, not due to anything he did to coach the Bears or any decision he made — but by an incident broadcast by CBS between the second and third quarters, when Johnson came out back onto the field after halftime.
As has become standard practice on network broadcasts, coaches stop for quick-hit interviews going into or coming out of halftime, with the broadcast team’s sideline reporter usually throwing a few, mostly very general questions the coach’s way and getting largely perfunctory responses in return.
Johnson Gives Snarky Response to Reporter
Networks have been incorporating the coach interviews into their broadcasts for several years, but originally it was optional for the coaches to cooperate with the stop-and-chat segments. But starting last season, the NFL made halftime head coach interviews mandatory for the coaches, either as they head into the locker room after the second quarter or come back out during the third.
On Sunday, Johnson was stopped as he headed out for the third quarter by veteran sideline reporter Aditi Kinkhabwala, who asked Johnson about the Bears’ offensive struggles in the first half when they put up only nine points and trailed by five at the break.
When Kinkhabwala asked Johnson, “Do you need to change what you’re doing,” he paused and seemed to give her a brief death stare before answering sarcastically, “I don’t know, you think so?”
Fans React to Johnson Interview
Fans online were not thrilled, to say the least, with what they saw as Johnson’s testy reply, which appeared as some kid of power play on the female reporter.
“Absolutely immature by him. Aditi deserves better,” wrote one viewer on X (formerly Twitter).
“She is amazing and she can handle this,” wrote another. “I think it’s a d*** move by him.”
“He was completely out of line for that,” another online fan wrote. Yet another added, “That Ben Johnson interview didn’t sit right with me.”
Some Viewers Take Johnson’s Side in Controversy
Not all viewers sided with Kinkhabwala, however. John Simmons of the publication Outkick, wrote after the game that though he might normally “say the coach overreacted,” he criticized the CBS reporter for asking “her questions with a high-level of snark that was unbecoming of a sideline reporter. I don’t blame Johnson for getting extra frustrated in his second response. Kinkhabwala failed to maintain a strong level of professionalism.”
The Bears have a bye next week, then return on October 13 for an ESPN Monday Night Football game against the Washington Commanders, meaning that Johnson and Kinkhabwala will not be revisiting their on-air confrontation anytime soon.
Analyst Rips Browns: Deshaun Watson Deal Deemed the Worst in NFL History
The Cleveland Browns cut the head clean off the Baker Mayfield era when they traded three first round picks to the Houston Texans for Deshaun Watson, who was given a handsome, guaranteed pay day.
Browns analyst Nick Pedone hit his breaking point as Baker Mayfield capped off a primetime win with a touchdown drive on Monday Night Football. The former Browns’ first overall pick led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a 2-0 start on the season. A day prior, the Browns lost their 17th game in twenty tries. As Baker Mayfield cements himself in the upper echelon of NFL quarterbacks, Pedone staked his claim about the team's 2022 trade for Watson.
“They made the worst trade in the history of professional sports,” Pedone said on the BIGPLAY Cleveland Show this week. “The decision to move on from Baker Mayfield to Deshaun Watson still haunts this team.”
It’s hard to argue with this take, as the Browns are 0-2 while their former quarterback led his team to a 2-0 start.
“The offense has a $230M albatross that they invested three first round picks into,” Pedone said. "They still owe him $80M on their cap sheet next year and they’ve gotten quite literally zero production from that.
When the Browns signed Watson’s five-year $230M fully-guaranteed extension, they could have never envisioned how bad the contract would turn out to be. Watson, who has only started 19 games over his four seasons as a Brown, has amassed less than 3,500 passing yards as the starting quarterback and has thrown for just 19 passing touchdowns.
Pedone’s “literally zero production” comment is barely hyperbolic.
Pedone chastised the Browns for banking on Watson to lift a roster with gaps the size of three first round picks instead of using the picks to build further around Mayfield.
“You could have used a first-round pick on an offensive lineman,” Pedone said. “The tackle position is laughable.”
For those that argue Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham Jr. would have still aged like milk, Pedone has a question: “How would Jerry Jeudy look as WR2 with a guy like Malik Nabers as your WR1?”
It’s hard to not daydream into the euphoric land where the Browns didn’t trade Mayfield, three first-round picks, and $230M worth of cap space. However, the dystopian reality of the worst trade of all time remains: “That dead weight is still around and is still going to be around next year.”
