Ben Johnson could become the most popular Bears coach in a generation — if he wins

WGN-TV brought the Cubs to the Carolinas, where a young Ben Johnson and his family became fast fans of Sammy Sosa, Mark Grace and Ryne Sandberg. The Johnson family so loved the Cubs that, when Johnson's brother graduated high school, he put in for season tickets at Wrigley Field even though he didn’t live in Chicago.

His name came off the waiting list in 2015. For almost a decade before he became the Bears head coach, Johnson would take a family trip to Wrigley Field each summer. Some years he’d stay downtown, other years across from the ballpark.

“We always made a point as a family to come back for a series …” Johnson said. “It’s certainly a sports town.”

Johnson’s love was returned in April, when he climbed the mound at Wrigley Field and threw a sinker for a first-pitch strike. The crowd roared.

“I thought he was going to come with some speed,” general manager Ryan Poles said with a smile. “But he actually had some movement, which I thought was awesome.”

Johnson is already more popular than Matt Eberflus, the man he replaced — and he hasn’t coached a game yet. He hasn’t even run a meaningful practice, though that will change when the Bears open training camp Wednesday at Halas Hall. Veterans report Tuesday, when Johnson and Poles will address the media.

If Johnson does what the Bears hope he can do this season and beyond, he could become the franchise’s most beloved head coach since Mike Ditka.

Now all Johnson has to do is win — an enormous task for a franchise that has won exactly one playoff game since reaching the Super Bowl at the end of the 2006 season. In Johnson’s lifetime — he was born May 11, 1986 —only the Lions and Browns claim fewer playoff wins than the Bears’ six. Only the Lions and Dolphins have a worse postseason winning percentage.

All Johnson has to do is mentor second-year quarterback Caleb Williams into a star — a daunting undertaking for the only franchise in the NFL to never boast a 4,000-yard passer. In 2016, the Bears threw for a franchise-best 3,969 yards as a team on their way to a 3-13 record. There are 255 teams in NFL history who have thrown for more. Only two quarterbacks in NFL history were sacked more times than Williams’ 68 last season, the result of an offensive line the Bears claim they’ve fixed.

And all Johnson has to do is make Bears football fun — a tall task after decades of dysfunction and drudgery. Johnson offered a glimpse of playfulness at Soldier Field in December by installing and calling a play the Lions dubbed “Stumble Bum,” in which quarterback Jared Goff pretended to fall down and running back Jahmyr Gibbs dove to the ground, all to trick Bears linebacker T.J. Edwards into ignoring the man he was supposed to be covering, tight end Sam LaPorta. Goff stood up and found LaPorta wide open for a 21-yard touchdown.

The Netflix docuseries “Quarterback” released this month showed the Lions practicing the play in the week leading up to the Bears game. Johnson drew up the play after seeing Packers quarterback Jordan Love fumble, pick the ball up and throw deep against Edwards the year before.

Johnson talked to Williams about the trick play in one of their first meetings. Such fun, he said, doesn’t happen without hard work.

“You don’t have cool, creative things like that without somebody like him being such a creative mind,” the quarterback said. “And then being super-disciplined and holding all the guys accountable throughout the weeks and training camp.”

The Bears doubled Eberflus’ salary to lure the former Lions offensive coordinator this offseason. They considered their investment worth it, particularly after Williams spent his rookie year playing for three different offensive coordinators and two head coaches. When word leaked this spring that Williams’ father considered steering his son away from the Bears a year ago, many in the organization pointed to Johnson as a reason to believe things will be different.

The Bears have sold such hope before. Since the franchise was founded in 1920, the Bears have hired exactly two men with previous head coaching experience —Paddy Driscoll, whose experience was first as a player/coach, and John Fox, who went on to post the second-worst winning percentage in the history of Bears coaches. Everyone else was, like Johnson, learning how to be a head coach on the fly.

Johnson named former Saints and Raiders head coach Dennis Allen his defensive coordinator to help offset some of that inexperience. Still, Johnson, who’s never been a head coach at any level, will be the one steering his first training camp this week.

After an offseason in which the Bears were universally praised for their ability to land the hottest head coaching candidate on the market, there’s no doubting that Johnson has the potential to reignite the franchise. In a way, he already has.

Unless he wins, though, it’s possible he’ll never be more popular than he was when he stood on the mound at Wrigley Field, staring into the catcher’s mitt and rocking back to throw.