DJ Moore, Rome Odunze Tease ‘Scary’ Culture Change Under Ben Johnson
The ‘Monsters of the Midway’ moniker has been attached to the Chicago Bears since the mid-1940s, when the team acquired the nickname after a dominant 14-year stretch between 1932 and 1946 yielded six NFL Championships. But now Chicago’s championship drought is coming up on 40 years, and the last coach to embody the Monsters of the Midway persona was Mike Ditka, who led the team to an 18-1 record in 1985.
That may all be changing under new head coach Ben Johnson, a man who has been affectionately referred to as “a football psycho” by numerous members of the media, and even his own players. Most recently, Bears wide receivers DJ Moore and Rome Odunze — rocking an absolutely impeccable afro, by the way — sat down with Kay Adams and discussed their ‘scary’ head coach and the culture change he’s facilitated in the Windy City.
“Starting with Ben Johnson, he came in and set the tone for everything,” Moore said. “He can be scary at times, but he’s really a loving, down to earth person that’s gonna get us going right.”
Rome Odunze couldn’t help but chuckle when DJ Moore referred to Ben Johnson as ‘scary,’ and then backed up his veteran teammate, saying, “I think it’s funny, him saying he’s scary, but I would agree though to a certain extent.”
In an extended version of the interview, Moore and Odunze jokingly discussed the challenge of getting their new head coach to smile, saying that it requires a really good joke or following the details to a tee to get Ben Johnson to emote like a normal human being. But frankly, even that I’m not sure of, because as the Bears were throttling the Buffalo Bills in the 1st half of last weekend’s preseason game, Johnson was stone-faced on the sideline the entire time.
Ben Johnson Not Getting Caught Up in Preseason Hype
Like the true football psycho that he is, when Ben Johnson sat down for his interview with Kay Adams and was asked about how seldom he was seen smiling during Chicago’s 38-0 win over Buffalo last Sunday, he remarked, “I think the guys see me smile all the time,” and then he cracked what could only be called a Dexter Morgan-esque devilish grin. It was such a departure from what Bears fans had come to expect from the likes of Matt Nagy and Matt Eberflus.
Johnson isn’t getting caught up in the hype, though. He understands that this is still a long process, one that will have its ups and downs, and in what may be the best division in football, the Bears will need to run the gauntlet to return to the postseason for the first time since 2020.
“We’re not listening to anything outside of this building right now. That’s been the message since the start of training camp,” Johnson told Adams. “It’s noise. Positive and negative, and we’re just getting in the habit of putting it in one ear and out the other. But to me, the cool thing about this particular place is that we’ve got fans that really care about the Bears.”
That much is certainly true, and every step of the way this season, all of those Bears fans in Chicago and everywhere else around the world will be watching this new ‘Monster’ take the reigns of the NFL’s oldest franchise and try to return them to their glory days.
And oh, by the way, if you needed any more proof that Ben Johnson is in fact a little off in the head, his final words to Kay Adams… “I drink my coffee black.”
That’s some straight up psycho behavior.
