Ben Johnson went to Chicago without the Cowboys ever even getting a chance to speak to him.
The first big-time head coaching domino fell in the NFL on Monday afternoon: Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson is the new head coach of the Chicago Bears.
While the New England Patriots locked down Mike Vrabel something like five months ago now, Johnson choosing the Bears seems like the first motion to set off the potential chain reaction across the league. There are now five remaining head coach vacancies.
Hours before the Johnson news broke, the Cowboys were caught up in some headlines of their own their most recent offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer becoming the betting favorite to take over as their skipper.
Whether the Cowboys are ultimately led by Schottenheimer, Kellen Moore, Deion Sanders or Jason Witten (these are all names who have been thrown out with varying degrees of seriousness), we at least know for sure that the spot will not be held by Johnson.
To be clear here, Ben Johnson was by far the most coveted head coaching candidate in this year’s cycle. You can make an argument that he was the most coveted in last year’s. The ultimate irony is that he withdrew from the Washington Commanders job that went to Dan Quinn, and it was Washington who ultimately bounced Detroit and allowed Johnson the ability to come to this decision. Sometimes that is the way things go.
Whatever the case, Johnson was the belle of the ball and he chose the Bears over everyone else. This “everyone else” includes the Dallas Cowboys, but in a technical sense it doesn’t as Dallas never spoke with or interviewed him formally.
This is the case because even though their season has been over for two weeks now, the Cowboys waited until after the Wild Card Round to move on from Mike McCarthy (who will not be the head coach of the Bears by the way). This prohibited them from having virtual interviews with Johnson or Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn until after their seasons ended. That became the case on Saturday night, but it didn’t even take 48 hours for Johnson to pick the Bears.
It is possible, and some would argue even likely, that Johnson has had his mind made up for some time. Perhaps a conversation with the Cowboys was never going to change his mind. But that Dallas never even made their pitch to the most coveted candidate on the market when making a decision on something as important as head coach is representative of a broken process. The Cowboys – the team who boasts the largest drought for NFC Championship Game appearances – are not a team who can operate above anyone else. They have to be looking under every rock. And they just ignored an important one.
The fact u have a job opening and don’t talk to the best candidate in the pool makes u wonder about the seriousness of your own search.
— Calvin Watkins (@calvinwatkins) January 20, 2025
Ben Johnson was in all likelihood never going to pick the Cowboys. but multiple things can be true here. And that the Cowboys have gone about such a seismic thing in such a cavalier way suggests that they weren’t even prepared for it, corroborating recent reports.
The Cowboys will visit Ben Johnson’s Chicago Bears in the 2025 season, and if the situation unfolds in a way similar to the last incident along these lines (Derrick Henry and the Baltimore Ravens) then it is going to make for a long day for the new head coach.