Ben Johnson made his head-coaching debut with the Chicago Bears on Monday night and the rookie head coach made his first blunder in a 27-24 loss to the Minnesota Vikings.
After the Bears cut the deficit to three points late in the fourth quarter, there was just 2:02 left in the game and Chicago had just one timeout left.
At that point, Johnson had multiple options, one of which was the most traditional method in that situation: an onside kick.
But Johnson also could have had his kicker send the ball out of bounds or through the back of the end zone and that would have kept the two-minute warning as a much-needed timeout for the Bears.
Instead, kicker Cairo Santos didn’t get the kickoff out of the back of the end zone and that allowed Vikings running back Ty Chandler to return the ball and run the clock to under two minutes, wiping out the two-minute stoppage for Chicago.
The Vikings went on to run the clock down to under 10 seconds before punting the ball away and that wasn’t anywhere near enough time for a Bears offense that struggled for most of the night to pull off a miracle.
“The coaching move there had to simply be to kick the ball out of bounds,” FOX Sports’ Nick Wright wrote on X. “Who cares about the difference between giving it up at the 40 vs 35, you simply can’t risk not getting the 2min warning stoppage. Ben Johnson’s first major game management mistake.”
“Welp, Bears just lost because they didn’t onside kick or kick it out of the end zone,” Pride of Detroit’s Jeremy Reisman wrote.
What makes Johnson’s mistake look worse is the fact that Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell had an outstanding game.
Not only was he coaching Chandler to run out of the end zone on the kickoff while the play was happening, he also saw his second-year quarterback settle down big time in the second half en route to doing a complete 180.
It’s only one game for Johnson, so it’s far too early to hit the panic button, but it was still a tough loss for a Bears team that started off fast with an impressive touchdown drive on the opening series.
Now, Johnson will look ahead to a Week 2 matchup against his old friends, the Detroit Lions.
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