Let’s get one thing straight before the comments section turns into a dumpster fire of people trying to discredit what we just did to Cleveland. Sure, it was the Browns, but 31-3 is a statement. And while the scars from Lambeau are still fresh, we need to stop nitpicking Caleb’s completion percentage and look at the bigger picture.
But I need us to take a collective breath. Put down the Malört (just for a second) and look at the bigger picture.
We are so traumatized by decades of "offensive geniuses" who turned out to be frauds — Marc Trestman’s screen passes, Matt Nagy’s "Be You" playbook, Luke Getsy’s inability to understand the forward pass — that we are missing what is happening right in front of our eyes.
If you’ve been watching the games with your heart instead of just your anxiety, you’ve felt it. It’s chaotic. It’s volatile. Sometimes, like that first half in Green Bay, it makes you want to throw your remote through the TV. But if you actually dig into the data — the stuff that tells you how we are winning, not just if we won — you’ll see a startling truth.
Ben Johnson’s 2025 Bears aren't just "on track" to match his 2022 Lions offense.
They are already ahead of it.
Yeah, I said it. Save your angry tweets. Let’s break down the tape and the numbers to prove why our offense, warts and all, is a more dangerous beast than the Lions in Ben Johnson's first year calling the plays ever were at this stage.
1. The Scoreboard: Mirror Images with a Different Engine
Let’s start with the "normie" stats. You know, the ones your uncle quotes at Thanksgiving to explain why the Bears still "suck" (even though we're 10-4).
When you stack Ben Johnson’s first full year calling plays in Detroit (2022) against his first 13 games with us in Chicago (2025), the raw production is almost identical. It’s spooky.
- 2022 Lions Points Per Game: 26.6 (5th in NFL)
- 2025 Bears Points Per Game: 26.9 (Top 8)
- 2022 Lions Yards Per Game: ~380.0
- 2025 Bears Yards Per Game: 378.4
On paper, it’s a wash. But we know context is king. The 2022 Lions were an efficiency machine. They dinked, dunked, and gashed you with a play-action game that Jared Goff — an 8th-year vet who had been to a Super Bowl — operated like a surgeon. They were 5th in Offensive DVOA (+13.7%) because they didn't make mistakes. They were boringly effective.
Our 2025 Bears? We are a rollercoaster in a hurricane. Our Offensive DVOA is middle-of-the-pack (around 14th). We have quarters where we go three-and-out four times in a row and I start having flashbacks to 2004.
But we are matching Detroit's scoring output.
Think about how insane that is. We are scoring nearly 27 points a game without the down-to-down consistency Detroit had. How? Because Ben Johnson has replaced "efficiency" with pure, unadulterated violence.
2. The "Scare" Factor: Explosives Over Efficiency
Here is the biggest difference, and why I honestly believe defensive coordinators are losing more sleep over preparing for Caleb than they did for 2022 Goff.
Ben Johnson has seemingly realized that with a rookie QB and an offensive line that’s been taped together with hope and prayers, he can’t rely on 12-play, 80-yard marches every time. So, he flipped the script. He traded consistency for the knockout punch.
Per TruMedia and Next Gen Stats, the Bears currently lead the NFL with a 14.1% explosive play rate.
Read that again. The Chicago Bears. The franchise where "explosive offense" used to mean a fullback dive for 6 yards on 3rd-and-1.
In 2022, the Lions were methodical. They killed you with a thousand cuts. 6.2 yards per play (2nd in the league), sure, but it was sustained. We are hunting big game. We have 48 "big plays" (runs of 12+, passes of 16+) in just the first six games alone.
Johnson has openly said he’d rather hit one 20-yard gain at a 50% clip than string together three 5-yard completions. Why? Because explosives score points. Efficiency just moves chains.
This is a massive philosophical shift. In Detroit, Johnson needed a year and a half to turn that offense into a juggernaut. In Chicago, he has already installed the "nuclear option." Is it messy? Hell yes. Caleb’s completion percentage is hovering around 59%, which looks ugly compared to Goff’s robotic precision. But ask a defensive coordinator what they’d rather face: A QB who completes 70% of his passes for 6 yards a pop, or our guy who might drop a 50-yard bomb to Luther Burden III or rip off a 20-yard scramble while making a linebacker look stupid?
We are winning with volatility. And in today's NFL, volatility is a weapon.
3. The Ground Game: Faster, Harder, Stronger
If you want to talk about "ahead of schedule," look at the run game. This is where the debate officially ends.
It took the Lions until late 2022 and really 2023 (the Jahmyr Gibbs/David Montgomery era) to establish truly elite, dominant ground prowess. In 2022, they were 11th in rush yards per game (128.2). Good, not great.
The 2025 Bears? We are 2nd in the NFL, averaging 144.4 rushing yards per game.
And we aren't doing it with first-round picks. We are doing it with Kyle Monangai, a 7th-round pick who runs like he’s angry at the grass.
- Lions 2022: 4.9 yards per carry.
- Bears 2025: Leading the NFL in yards before contact per rush (~2.07).
That "yards before contact" stat is the smoking gun for Ben Johnson. That’s not the running back making a play; that is the scheme erasing defenders. Johnson has our offensive line—which, let's be real, has had more lineups than a bad 80s rock band—opening actual highways.
We have the best rushing success rate (~46.7%) a Bears team has seen since the early 2000s. Structurally, Chicago has built a 2023-Lions-level run game in Year 1. That is absurd. That is the definition of being ahead of the curve.
4. The QB Context: The Vet vs. The Kid
This is the part where context matters. You cannot compare these two offenses in a vacuum without looking at the trigger man.
2022 Detroit: Jared Goff. A veteran. A guy who had seen every coverage, knew his protections, and was operating in a system built entirely around his strengths (play-action, middle of the field).
2025 Chicago: Caleb Williams. A second-year player coming off a "meh" rookie season, learning a system that was supposedly "ripped down to the studs."
The fact that we are matching the Lions' 2022 scoring output with a young, developing QB instead of a polished vet is the strongest indicator of Johnson's coaching evolution.
Caleb isn't playing "point guard" like Goff. He’s playing street ball within a structure. His turnover rate is Rodgers-esque (0.9%), and while he makes young QB mistakes (like that INT to end the Packers game — oof, I still feel that one in my gut), his high-end plays are significantly higher than 2022 Goff (like that dart to DJ Moore this past weekend — Goff isn’t making that throw).
Johnson is trusting Caleb with a much heavier mental load than he gave Goff in Year 1. We’re seeing more motion, more checks at the line, and more "12 personnel" (two tight ends) looks involving Colston Loveland and Cole Kmet that demand the QB read leverage instantly.
The Lions needed training wheels in early 2022. We took the training wheels off in Week 5.
5. The "Eye Test": It’s Not Just Detroit 2.0
Lazy analysts will tell you Johnson just brought the Detroit playbook to Chicago. Those people aren't watching the All-22.
Johnson told us in the offseason: "It’s not going to look like it did in Detroit." And he wasn't lying.
The 2022 Lions were under center 50% of the time (highest in the NFL). We are under center heavily (about 58% on early downs), but the variety out of those looks is miles ahead of where Detroit was in 2022.
- The TE Usage: In 2022, the Lions used tight ends, but it wasn't the focal point until LaPorta arrived. In Chicago, the Loveland/Kmet duo is the engine. Loveland is playing like a top-10 pick, creating matchup nightmares that Detroit didn't have in the passing game back then.
- The Motion: Our motion usage post-bye week has skyrocketed. We are confusing linebackers and safeties before the snap, creating those massive "yards before contact" numbers for Monangai.
Johnson isn't installing "Lions Offense 1.0." He's installing "Lions Offense 3.0" with a rookie-ish QB. It’s a harder install. It’s more complex. And it’s already producing the same points.
Final Verdict
Is this Bears offense perfect? Hell no. Our third-down efficiency is trash compared to Detroit. We rely way too much on the big play. We have games where we disappear for 30 minutes (looking at you, Green Bay game).
But if the question is "Are we ahead of schedule?", the answer is an emphatic YES.
- We have matched the scoring.
- We have exceeded the explosiveness.
- We have a better run game.
- And we are doing it with a younger, higher-upside quarterback.
Ben Johnson’s 2022 Lions were a Honda Accord: Reliable, efficient, got you there safely. Ben Johnson’s 2025 Bears are a Dodge Hellcat with a student driver. It might crash into a ditch. It might stall at a light. But when it hits the straightaway? It’s leaving the Honda in the dust.
And I don't know about you, but after years of driving a beat-up Pinto, I’d rather ride in the Hellcat.
Bear Down.
