← Forward Progress - A Chicago Bears Podcast
Forward Progress - A Chicago Bears Podcast
ESPN's Courtney Cronin on the BIG PICTURE entering Chicago Bears training camp
00:38:34
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- [00:00]
Dan Bernstein
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- [02:04]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
I mean, if you're a Bears fan,
- [02:06]
Dan Bernstein
you're thinking forward progress.
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GameTime App Announcer
Come on.
- [02:16]
Dan Bernstein
Forward Progress Chicago Bears podcast with Dan Bernstein and matabetic cola on 312 sports. Forward progress is yours here on 312 sports. And you see that we are joined by a familiar face here on Forward Progress, a Chicago Bears podcast. It is that of Courtney Cronin of espn, who's been kind enough to take the time to Join us here on. Well, we're pretty close to the eve of training camp. We it is finally, finally, finally upon us. We can finally emerge from the NFL content desert. And as, as you are setting your I hate the term storylines, I hate the term narratives. But just as far as open questions may go, that training camp will serve some purpose in helping answer what's at the top of your list as we embark.
- [03:11]
Courtney Cronin
I guess in the macro it would be is this Bears team more than a one hit wonder, a one year wonder that we saw last year? And I think the answer is pretty much universally, yes. But what does that do for the win total? What does that do for all the one score games that they won last year? All the crazy fourth quarter comebacks, the comeback, you know, the overtime game that they played against the Rams, like how much of that can they replicate? The takeaways, all the things that you don't expect to transfer over from one year to the next? I think I start there and then I work my way backwards to figure out how do they get back to 11 wins? Is the defense ready to go? Knowing that the biggest issue, the pass rush still is big time question mark going into training camp. So I always start big and then go backwards. Because when you look across the league at every team that's zero and zero right now, everybody's got the clean slate. You have to take into account what the teams did the year before. And then as you build your storylines, you, storylines, narratives, whatever you want to call it, you look at how different is this team and how equipped are they to do what they did the year before. Are they better? Are they worse?
- [04:21]
Dan Bernstein
Dennis Allen is in focus because he offered, I don't have the quote in front of me, but he offered in an explanation something to the effect of we looked at what happened with the defense last year and a lot of this was on me. And he said it. And that became the whole coach harder thing that Ben Johnson then said, well, you know, they were too much. We were talking about scheme and not enough about fundamentals. And that's always a red flag for me about because first of all you'd say, okay, well why, why didn't you figure that out in the middle of last season? When did you realize this? Why didn't you change it then? It sounds like excuse making. But then you look at the history of Dennis Allen defenses, they often do better in year two. Do you think it was a direct challenge that was made behind closed doors to Dennis Allen of any kind of saying, hey man, you have to be better, your side of the ball has to be better. Figure it out.
- [05:22]
Courtney Cronin
I do. Because the reason he said that in May during rookie minicamp was because the last time we had talked to Ben Johnson before that point, you know, there was the draft, but the call out came in March at NFL owners meetings or early April, whenever it was that, you know, we've got to coach better. And he said it about himself in the offensive side of the ball. But I think Dennis Allen internalized that as my unit, particularly the ability to pressure opposing quarterbacks was not up to par last year. And the way that he dissected the issues were that they focused too much on scheme, not enough on fundamentals. Okay, so at what point of the season did you realize that?
- [06:02]
Dan Bernstein
I guess that was my question. Like, why does it take a whole season of going back and realizing that happened?
- [06:08]
Courtney Cronin
They. They clearly knew that that was what was going on in the middle of the season, early season, end of season. They knew it the whole year, but they were able to get by because they had so many great moments that were like, overshadowing what was going on up front. 33 takeaways is nothing to, you know, turn your nose up at, but they knew it wasn't sustained sustainable considering the way that you beat teams is by stopping the run. The way that you beat teams is by limiting what quarterbacks can do, limiting how far they can climb in the pocket doing all the things that good teams with good pass rushes do, like Denver, like Houston, like some of the best defenses that we see in the NFL. So I took it as Dennis Allen, a former head coach, understanding what his current head coach was doing there, in trying to put the onus on everyone and. And that it can't just be the offense has to carry the defense, or the defense has to show up better in spite of the offense. And any of those moments, it was. It's got to be a collective thing. And that was his way of taking some responsibility for what went wrong. Now you can look at this and say, well, they're covering for the fact that they just don't have the horses up front. They don't have the talent up front. And for whatever reason you want to believe they didn't go after the marquee pass rusher. They can only go so far as protecting what they lack right now and saying, well, no, no, look, our players are coach better. You have to give yourself. You almost have to, like, say something, convince yourself you believe it, and then see if you can actually get the two to align. So what they've done is told us, no, it's going to be coached better because the players we have right now are going to be better prepared to do what we're asking them to do within this scheme. But at some point, if that doesn't work and you're not going to know the first week of training camp, you're going to know when they put pads on, when it looks, you know how it, you can determine how it looks,
- [07:52]
Dan Bernstein
if you can even then correct, because
- [07:55]
Courtney Cronin
they can't hit the quarterback. And it's, it's difficult in training camp. But at some point, if they end up signing a pass rusher off the street, a name that's more than just a camp body or somebody you expect to be depth as depth, then you'll know that what they were saying all off season never checked out. They, it was wishful thinking at that point, but they felt they had to go another direction. But I, I can't fault Dennis Allen for saying that when he did because it wasn't up to him to not go get Max Crosby. It wasn't up to him to not use any of those early draft picks on an edge rusher in a deep edge class. It wasn't up to him to allocate resources that they did in free agency to not go get in on any of the pass rushers. Yes, they were expensive, they were going for a premium, but they chose to allocate those resources elsewhere. So if it works out and the coaching, coaching really was what it takes to unlock Austin Booker or Diodangbo or anything else, then that's great. But right now that is the biggest if on this, on this roster going into training camp.
- [08:52]
Dan Bernstein
One of the truest things I've heard anybody say about NFL coaches, and maybe it applies to football coaches everywhere, is you can tell what side of the ball matters more to them, sort of what their nature is by how they answer a neutral question. And they'll tell you if they go back to sort of their comfortable side of the ball. And with Ben Johnson, he didn't even hide it, you know, it is, it is clear that what kind of coach he is. So the fanfic in my mind is he really doesn't care that, that he's like, okay, whatever you do with the defense, tell me how many points we need. And we, and I, and I, and I get back to the, the Bengals game last year and how excited he was after that game and what was it, 47 to 42 or something, the late Loveland touchdown and, and I'm thinking like in Ben Johnson's mind, that's fine. He doesn't have to win 24 to 3, he can win 54 to 50 and it's not necessarily going to bother him. And I know that's an exaggeration, but I definitely think there is something there with him basically saying, look, if I'm doing my job correctly, the defense is an afterthought.
- [10:10]
Courtney Cronin
To be fair, he did say he wants to take more onus in defensive meetings this year. He wants to be around more, he wants to be a more well rounded head coach, I get that. But at the end of the day, the offense is his baby, it's his brainchild. He created this, he built this. So of course that's what he's going to have the most faith in. That. You know, by and large in the NFL, even the teams that win Super Bowls, they're going to have some weakness where you're not going to have the greatest offense in the NFL, the number one offense in the NFL, number one defense, and the best special teams unit. It's just there's going to be somewhere where your team is not as great as the best team in that category across all 32 teams. So the way he views it is if I do my job as an offensive play caller, as an offensive head coach, I know that the scheme, the players, the fit, all of it's going to marry up to when we're in a bind, we can rely on us to get us out of a bind. And that's not something you were ever historically ever able to say about the Chicago Bears, that it would be the offense bailing out the defense. And we saw that countless times last year. You know, you think about that game in Cincinnati that you referenced with the Loveland touchdown at the end of the game, that solidified him as a, is a huge part piece of that offense. You go to the Green Bay games, both of them, the ones at home, the one at home in December, it was offense that got them back in that game in the final two minutes. Same thing with the playoff game. Offense able to get them out of that 18 point deficit at halftime and win that game for them. Like. And it goes to what we've heard players say about him, like Caleb Williams, when he was on the 4th and 1 podcast with Cam Newton, said that they share the same mentality that Ben wants to whoop their ass, meaning the opponent. And that he'll look at him and be like, I want to put up 50, like. And he's like, I want to put up 52. That's. You're never. If that's the mindset of the, of the person who's in charge and ultimately the person who is the identity of this team that everybody else is following, then it's going to be what they focus on more than anything else. So of course they want the defense to improve. You can't say you want it to stay the same because it wasn't good at times last year. I mean, yes, the takeaways were there, but that's not a stat you expect to.
- [12:21]
Dan Bernstein
But money talks, draft picks talking money talk. So. And in the draft pick you can see it's. You're replacing a guy though. Like that's the thing. Even if you think that's a wash now with your safeties that you had and you had career seasons from so many guys in the secondary that you say look what we've had, look what we've added. You keep getting back to the, the, those turnovers and, and to me a lot of this is that question of can you actually create turnovers? Lovey Smith always preached that you, you can and I guess they kind of did over the, the years that he was here. But I want to go into this season presuming an average number of turnovers and nowhere near what they got last year. And that means the defense doesn't just have to be a little bit better, they got to be a lot better.
- [13:15]
Courtney Cronin
They do because it's not. It's just like it's. There's certain stats that you see a team achieve in one season that don't carry over to the next year. And you can talk about the turnovers, you can talk about all the one score games. I do think they are capable because of who the quarterback is in those. If they get into one score games again of figuring it out the same way that they did. But you can't expect a team that was 11 wins good last year to be 11 wins good the following year because they're just, you can't project. It's like the Chiefs a year ago, like they came into the seat the 2025 season after all those one score games they won in 24. And people who thought they weren't going to win the division were wise to think that because there's a natural regression that comes in that category now as it pertains to the takeaways. You had a whole lot of them walk out the door between Kevin Byard, Nishan Wright, Tremaine Edmonds. That's a whole lot of interceptions on top of the forced fumbles and you know, the strip sacks, all of those things that as they get younger and they get faster and I guess rangier on defense, I mean we talk about processing speed, we talk about play speed, we talk about all the sorts of speed that they believe that they have from Dylan Thienaman to Kobe Bryant to Devin Bush. That's great. But does it make up for the biggest thing that you don't have right now, which is certainty with your pass rush? To me that's where if you want the takeaway numbers to be consistent to where it was not expecting it's going to be 33 again next year. But if you want it to be consistently good then you've got to get a push up front. And so far we saw that that was inconsistent last year and they largely have the same same presence that they had from, from a year ago. So I just. It'll look, it'll look better because they will be able to close in on the ball. They'll have faster closing speed. All those things that you want on defense stuff that Dennis Allen defense is that attacking style, they have that now. But I don't expect the takeaway numbers to continue to where they were a year ago. However, if they're made the right gamble, they should be able to be at least league average if not a little bit of a step ahead of that.
- [15:18]
Dan Bernstein
I'm also very interested to see the response that Caleb Williams has to their stated desires of him being less spectacular. And I get it. I understand that he should not have to rely on doing something jaw dropping just to extend a drive. That there should be moments for that where he knows that's what he must do, not what he wants to do. And yet when we talk about someone's nature, I think he is a creative thinker in the moment. I think he is always thinking touchdown to check down. I to me that's another balance here is do you want to how hard do you want to coach a special unique talent and how much you just want to say I trust you to see what you're supposed to see. And when Caleb grows sort of above and beyond his coach in a good
- [16:18]
Courtney Cronin
way, well, he needs to play better in moments within structure. That's just what the offense is going to going to call for. That's you know, that's every quarterback but he's a special case because there are instances and you can talk about completion percentage or what you're going to track it by, but there's absolutely instances where he doesn't need to run around, pick up 15 yards and scrambling and running outside of the pocket in order to make the exact same pass when there's an easier path to get there. That's what J.T. barrett was talking Bears quarterbacks coach was talking about when he said he would like to see Caleb do less this year. That's not to say they're going to strip him of what makes him spectacular, which is the whole artist versus the surgeon. And he believes he can be both. But that was the analogy that Ryan Poles brought up when he was talking about what makes great quarterbacks great. But that was before they drafted Caleb Williams and that is who they got in Caleb Williams. But he is the artist because so much of what he does is off platform. So much of what he does, many other quarterbacks aren't able to do and it makes it so difficult to defend. That's why he was a top quarterback, one of the top 10 quarterbacks on Jeremy Fowler's list that you know, he got from coaches, execs, everybody in the league there. There's a beauty to that. You don't want to coach that out of a player. But I do believe that Ben Johnson is right in wanting to make sure that you harness that you harness the Superman moments for when you need them. You're not going every, not every moment in the NFL, not every moment over the course of 60 to 80 plays in the game is going to require him to go into Superman mode. It's just, it's just not realistic. So. So playing better within structure is not them doing anything to take away from what makes him great. But sometimes it's just the checkdowns there. Take the check down. Don't overthink it, don't overcomplicate it. Because this game is complicated enough by doing the easier by doing the simple things absolutely perfectly. That's how he gets the next step in his career. And you know, I'm curious because teams now have a 19 game sample size on Caleb Williams in Ben Johnson's offense. And that's something that I've asked both of them about this offseason. It's something I've talked with defensive coordinators about across the NFL and there's certain things that you just can't game plan for. The spectacular, the fourth downs, the all of the crazy stuff that he does that makes him a great quarterback. But there's also team seeing you play under center more teams saying you play within structure. How can you get better at those things so they don't get a beat on you and they're not able to forced you into constantly feeling like you have to be in those heroic modes to just to complete a drive.
- [18:51]
Dan Bernstein
I'm a big believer that positional battles in training camp are, are the fixes in from the start one way or another. It's nearly impossible because of human nature, because of who's invested in the success or failure of various people. It's really hard to have an objective competition. You're in control of the reps, you're in control of what you, how you want to interpret performance. And I'm looking at the center position. I don't even know left tackle. I don't even really know where to start at the moment other than it's probably Braxton Jones.
- [19:29]
Courtney Cronin
Yeah, it's his job to lose.
- [19:30]
Dan Bernstein
I think it's his job to lose and I and generally he's a good enough practice player. I think he's likely to keep it. But at center, do you think they want the rookie Logan Jones to win that job? Because if they want him to outside of injury, I think they'll find a way to make it happen.
- [19:51]
Courtney Cronin
I don't know if they want him to win the job or it's their expectation for him to win the job because let's be honest, being a rookie center in an under center scheme where you have a ton on your plate as far as protections, you're going up against massive defensive tackles that you didn't even know he came from Iowa, Logan, and he's older. Yeah, he played five, five years in college, six years in college, the COVID year, the whole thing. Yes, they didn't get a typical rookie but you don't make the trade for Garrett Bradbury and yeah, he's here on, you know, doesn't have much time left on his contract. You only gave up a fifth round pick next year for him. That's great. But there's no rush. Like that's why I don't think that they're like, oh my God, we really want Logan Jones to win this job because there's absolutely no deadline for this. The best thing he can do is to learn under somebody who played 98% of snaps last year for a team that went to the super bowl that had a young quarterback that was able to help Drake may be one vote away from winning the mvp. All of that is stuff that Garrett Bradbury brings over seven years of his career that Logan Jones just doesn't have right now. Now that's not to say a battle can happen if they See him performing really well with the Twos. We only saw Logan Jones with the Twos if in, in, in OTAs and minicamp. That was, you know, I think by design. Why rush it? Because you literally don't have to. Same thing with like other positions. If you have a player who is ready to go right now and you need somebody great, have them play. If they're young, but they didn't need him to, they don't need him right now to be the starting center. So I look at it as, they're not going into this thinking Logan Jones is going to be the starting center. Week one. Garrett Bradbury can get you as far off that Runway as possible. And at some point this year because of his contract situation and you might probably, you might not envision him as part of the long term plan. When you're ready to make the switch to Logan Jones, you can. Same thing with Ozzie Tripillo. Like we've seen their philosophy for how they get an offensive lineman ready to play play out last year, second round picks not going to sit on the bench forever. That's, that would be dumb. Like then, you know, they've got an ability now to plan out, get him through training camp, see how he does and then by at some point this year, I imagine he'll be starting. But I just don't think it has to be him winning this battle in training camp or truly, truly, truly contending with Garrett Bradbury to see who's going to be the starter Week one.
- [22:17]
Dan Bernstein
Just an aside. Is there a belief that Tropilo will be back to some semblance of his previous ability? Because for a big person, a completely ruptured patellar tendon could alter the trajectory of a career.
- [22:31]
Courtney Cronin
Yeah, I have my skepticism on it. Ryan Polls has told me that they do not have any fear that he will not be the same player that he was when they drafted him out of Boston College, that he will not be the same player that, you know, was showing some positive signs once they made that switch week 12 last year. So I do think, though, there's a giant unknown because of when the injury happened and, and, and what this recovery process is going to be like. He didn't get the full, you know, it's not like it happened early on in the year and then he gets to be ready for training camp. That's why they're not putting any sort of timetable on him. And Ben Johnson said, I don't know when we'll get him back, if we'll get him back in 2026. You don't plan for him this year. That would be a bad idea because he's 6 foot 6, 6 foot 7 and he's coming off a patellar tendon injury. That's a really, really, really serious injury for anybody but someone at his size. And so the Bears are saying that they expect him to be back to who he was, but I still think that you've got to be very cautious in expecting that to be a slam dunk. He gets back to being a second round pick status by the time he is able to get on the field.
- [23:37]
Dan Bernstein
While we're indulging my annual or constant injury anxieties, Roma Dunes a said something that a lot of players don't say but is very true when he said, I have to learn how my, my foot works now.
- [23:55]
Courtney Cronin
This is my new normal.
- [23:56]
Dan Bernstein
This is my new normal, was exactly what he said. And this goes back forever. In football, they used to call, I got a trick knee and I know that I can't do this and I can't do that. And there are. And everybody has to do it in various degrees. And yet here we are in Chicago having been burned by David Terrell's foot, by Kevin White's leg. There have been situations wherever, I'll be fine, I'll be fine, I'll be fine. And what was left wasn't fine. What's your level of optimism and do you think that that was just his way of talking about his recovery, that we can still expect to be close to full?
- [24:38]
Courtney Cronin
I think it's the latter because I had a separate conversation with Rome this offseason. He was telling me all of the very, very small, minute things down to like arch lifts that he was doing with his foot like this. This is something that's serious because it didn't, while it didn't require surgery, it required him to do something to train his body, his foot, in a way that he had never had to focus on before. So I took it to mean when he said that publicly to the beat afterwards, during, during OTAS or minicamp. Forget which it was OTAs, you know, this is my new normal, means I'm healthy, my foot has healed. He didn't miss a snap out there during OTAS or mini camp. But I have to adjust to how my body has changed in this process. He played through a stress fracture last year and naturally your foot in the bones are not necessarily going to go back to how it was prior to that. And I don't know if it, you know, if he wouldn't have played on it. If he wouldn't have tried to play through the pain and fight through it, first off, he would get criticized for that. He was a no win situation. And then second off, you know, would it have really made that much of a difference? Who's to say? I'm not a doctor. I don't know if his foot would have been just as messed up as it was at the worst of it, but. However, I do believe that this is something in a make or break year. I know that year three sounds like it's crazy to say that's make or break for Roma Dunes A. But the reason I say it for him is because Luther Burden's hanging right behind him, ready to pounce to be wide receiver one.
- [26:17]
Dan Bernstein
How many people can Luther Burden move off the TV? He already got D.J. morrison.
- [26:21]
Courtney Cronin
I know. Yeah, I know. He's that spectacular in the eyes of his coaches. So that. Talk about somebody who has something at stake. I know it's only year two for him, but my God, they've made all these decisions around you in specific that you've got to live up to that and do it quickly. So I think for Rome, he enters this year in a place where he's got to make sure that that foot is not a part of his storyline. And I don't think it will be because it's not. You know, I think the honesty that he showed, like, yeah, there are days where it just, you know, he's. He's not in constant pain, but there are days where it doesn't feel good. It's managing that and not letting it affect what you do, becoming like the next step for him. Because so many of those drops, concentration drops are one thing. I think pain was a big part of it, too, that he was, you know, struggling in terms of how he was cutting some of his movements, what he was doing at the top of his route to where his body just was not synced up to where it needed to be when he was on the receiving end of a pass from Caleb Williams last year. And it's not like he was dropping every passes. I know that the drop narrative is a little overblown, but that's a confidence killer for a guy who was the best contested catch receiver when he came out of college as a number nine pick. So I think he'll be fine. I really do. But it is something that was a little, I don't want to say alarming, but it was very honest in a way that was kind of like, oh, I did not expect he would have said that's my new normal. Because there's always an alarming aspect or it's a little jarring when you, when you hear something like that because you think, wait, we saw how you were playing when you had the issue with your foot. You didn't look at the same guy that had the first five, six weeks of the season looking really good.
- [28:04]
Dan Bernstein
Do you know if Ben Johnson is planning on carrying over the good, better, best call and response post game or is he going to have a new one?
- [28:18]
Courtney Cronin
I can't imagine he gets rid of that. That's something that I've thought of because it was such a rallying cry for this team and it wasn't a one hit wonder from where he came from. That's something that started at A.C. reynolds High School from his former football coach. He comes up through the program. It's something that meant a lot. I did a story on this last year. It meant a lot to one of his best friends, Chase Rice, who. That's where Ben was doing it last year during the off season. Chase is a musician. It's something that they do to hype up their band before they have shows. That that's something that I think is an identity thing. So I don't expect good, better, best to go away anytime soon. And you know, if the season doesn't go according to how they believe it will go, if they can't pick up what, you know, have a fast start to 20, 26, knowing that they've got two division games in the first five weeks of the year, I don't think it goes away. But I do, I do think it's embedded in the fabric of who this team is under the head coach, that it can't just be, oh well, that's the exciting Bears thing. That's who they want to be all the time. Like if you listen to the words of it, you know, when you're, until you know, basically you're working your ass off to your good gets better and your better gets best.
- [29:30]
Dan Bernstein
Like, yeah, they're not best yet.
- [29:32]
Courtney Cronin
They're not at their best. So until they get there and no team ever truly is at like 100% best all the time. I think it's a, it's a message that will become as synonymous with Ben Johnson as it is with the team and vice versa.
- [29:46]
Dan Bernstein
It's part of what made last year so special and so much fun. And the other thing that did was his full on lean into the Bears, packers thing. And it wasn't pandering. I don't think because sometimes we get this lip service and we get, oh yeah, I know we got to beat the Packers. I know, go two and 15 as long as those two wins are against the Packers. But he more than owned it to the point where we don't even know if the bad blood with the packers head coach Matt LaFleur is real or not. We don't know. Is it kind of a half a wrestling work? I, I, I don't know. But I know that, that Ben Johnson's side of it certainly seems legit, certainly seems real, and that they weren't afraid that there was Caleb Williams wearing a cheese grater hat, sitting there in a post game grading cheese, going, ah, I never thought I would see that. And I'm just wondering the status of that particular relationship and did you expect that Ben Johnson would, would dive in to that aspect of the rivalry with such relish?
- [30:57]
Courtney Cronin
Well, if there's one thing we know about Ben Johnson, it's whatever he puts his mind to. He's going to be so all in on it that you're like, take a breath.
- [31:09]
Dan Bernstein
Yeah, there's no half measures with him.
- [31:11]
Courtney Cronin
No, he is not like, there's no half stepping on anything with this guy. The, the Bears needed a coach like this. Look, we talk so much about the oldest rivalry or one of the oldest rivalries in the NFL and it's become so one sided up until the time that he got here. So for him to lean in and say, no, this is going to matter again, not only matters to the fan base, it matters to ownership. It matters to people in this building who have been around for generations. And you know, the Green Bay thing is not just another game. It's two games a year at minimum and they're big ones. So I think he played that perfectly. Now, as far as, you know, the relationship between him and Matt LaFleur, I think the vibe you always get from the floor is, wait, you're talking to me about, wait, what? I don't know, you like that?
- [32:02]
Dan Bernstein
The vibe I get is what's your deal?
- [32:06]
Courtney Cronin
One thing I do wonder about, and I've always wanted to ask Ben Johnson, we had a session after the introductory press conference. It was a beat writer session in Hallis Hall. No cameras, just us. And he made this comment about his journey in coaching. He was asked about, you know, the time he got fired in Miami, basically had to start over in training camp as a very low level quality control coach in Detroit to rise through the ranks. And he made this thing that he made the statement that I didn't get into this job because I had, you know, a pedigree, more or less. The quote was about how I wasn't a former player. I don't have a famous last name. And I kind of wonder from that. I've always wondered, is that a shot at. Let's call them the Golden Boys, the La Flores, the McVeighs, the McDaniels, like all of those Shanahan, all the guys who came up in Washington, more or less, you know, they were all there together and they're their own fraternity. And he's on the outside of that looking in. So to me, that's where the shot came from more than anything else, where it's a. A chip on his shoulder.
- [33:16]
Dan Bernstein
Yeah. Because he wasn't. He wasn't like a made guy.
- [33:20]
Courtney Cronin
He doesn't have a coaching tree, if you think about it. I mean, sure, there's, you know, Joe Philbin, Mike Sherman, like all these guys that he coached for in Miami, but you can't really trace the Ben Johnson coaching tree, like, to. From. For anybody's coaching tree to which he comes from. I guess you could say Dan Campbell, but Dan Campbell, I think you would consider.
- [33:38]
Dan Bernstein
Like, Campbell wasn't.
- [33:40]
Courtney Cronin
Yeah.
- [33:40]
Dan Bernstein
And like some of these guys, I understand where he's coming from. It's almost like with nepotism, without it being your real dad. Like, you, like you have a father protector figure.
- [33:50]
Courtney Cronin
Sure.
- [33:50]
Dan Bernstein
Who can make calls on your behalf or who can say, oh, yeah, you know, that. Whose word carries a lot of weight. And I guess that he just hasn't quite had those same advantages. I hadn't quite thought of that being a motivating factor for him.
- [34:05]
Courtney Cronin
And whether he used that as motivation for himself or he truly believes it, if it's a little bit over the top, whatever. Matt LaFleur, in the reactions to that, it seems like Ben Johnson played the right mind game. Like, he was able to get under lafleur's skin because everything from the floor being like, what the hell?
- [34:25]
Dan Bernstein
Like, what's your deal?
- [34:26]
Courtney Cronin
I don't know. You like that? Like, why? Why, like. And then of course, there was the handshake and Ben's, you know, falling on his backside, you know, Roma dunes. He's got to pick him up, you know, after the, after the playoff win, they really lit into that. And the f. The packers chant. Once you say that stuff, you can't come back from it. It can't be like, well, that was one year. If they beat us next year two times, like, okay, you know, good game at the End of the day, no. Now. Now it's a hated rivalry again. You can't like them. And so Ben leading all the way in because he doesn't do any half measures. That's what I think. The lafleur relationship with him, you're not going to hear like, oh, yeah, we reconciled. Like, what is there to reconcile?
- [35:03]
Dan Bernstein
Right? It was, it was just a bit, you know, we're just doing coachy stuff. Right. They're not going to say that.
- [35:08]
Courtney Cronin
Yeah. So I respect it. I think that we need more hatred in sports. And I don't mean that in like a vitriolish way, like nastiness. But I don't want to see. I mean, you see it more in the NF, in the NBA. I don't want to see LeBron James and Anthony Edwards chatting it up in the fourth quarter of a playoff game when one. When late, the Lakers are losing. I don't want to see that in the NFL. I don't want to see guys, you know, everybody trains with each other, everybody knows each other, everybody has these relationships. But you want to see what you used to see, which is where the passion matches the result. And guys play like that. That's.
- [35:45]
Dan Bernstein
Our guest is Les Grobstein here on Forward Progress. No, that, no, I like that, though. That's. That's kind of an old hardo meatball football tape.
- [35:56]
Courtney Cronin
I mean, it's a sport, like, we've gotten away from a lot of the things that made football, you know, this, this macho game back in the day. And for good reason, health and safety reasons, 100%. I'm going to side with like, you know, modern, modern tech techniques to make sure that players stay safe. But when it comes to. I don't want to just hear trash talk in a game because guys are feeling themselves. I want to see it actually be backed by something that's bigger than the players, bigger than the coaches, and speaks to why a team is in a certain position and historically why something matters to them. And that's what you're getting right now with this renewed Bears packers rivalry. It's more fun when it's like this. There's no doubt when, when there's stakes and when, when guys are okay puffing their chest out and then going out and backing it up.
- [36:42]
Dan Bernstein
Last thing for you. We appreciate your generosity with your time as always. Courtney is. Who are the new voices from the early returns? I know you haven't had a ton of access with, with a new crop of the handful of free agents and. Or the rookies but who are we going to learn to like just because they're fun and interesting?
- [37:06]
Courtney Cronin
I do think that someone like Garrett Bradbury will be just, you know, he's so. I knew him when he, I covered him when he was drafted in Minnesota in 2019. And I think that from the very early part of his career, he, he became a staple up there. And the communication aspect of the fact that he already knew Joe Tuney because the two of them played at north, at NC State together. I mean usually offensive linemen are the no E. No, no pretense. I don't want to say no personality because everybody's got personality. But the way that he talks about young quarterback development, stuff that he's been a part of, I think a lot of Bears fans are going to gravitate towards that because you're going to feel like your quarterback's in good hands. So I think from, from that aspect it'll be Bradbury. But I did want to bring something up as you said that and I think about Devin Bush maybe, maybe not the answer that you would, you would think I would, you know, bring up here. But so they move on to, they move on from Tremaine Edmonds. Devin Bush slates slots in here as the Mike linebacker. And something that Richard Smith or linebackers coach said when he's asked about, you know, the communication aspect, you know, what, what is it going to be with Devin Bush? Does he have the traits that you need? And he said like your middle linebacker is a guy that directs the front guy in front. He's got to makes the calls, he sets the front. What you don't want is a guy who's quiet like right, right, left, left. He's like, he's like, I call it. You need a loud, obnoxious guy. Abrasive. He wants a quote abrasive out there.
- [38:34]
Dan Bernstein
And apparently I need a job.
- [38:37]
Courtney Cronin
Bush is so I don't, I think, I think he says that in a very endearing way, which I'm curious to see from a leadership perspective, from a front facing perspective, if Devin Bush is going to be that guy with the media, with the fans, because, you know, this defense, Kevin Byard was the voice of that defense last year and like an upstanding human being.
- [39:02]
Dan Bernstein
And Andrew Billings, Andrew Billings too was like the big presence.
- [39:06]
Courtney Cronin
Yes, but like, yeah, physically big too. But I, I look at this with Bush and I wonder like, I'm intrigued to get to know him because of that one quote from the linebackers coach in Richard Smith about this type of player because you're going to be hearing this guy on the field a lot. That's the job of a mike linebacker. You got to call out what you see and you got to communicate it to everybody else in the defense. So they brought it, brought him in for a reason. And it's a defense that doesn't have a whole ton of personalities on it. So I think he could carve out a role for himself pretty quickly. If that communication, if that leadership quality becomes something that carries into the locker
- [39:45]
Dan Bernstein
room from training camp, well, I am just about ready to go. I we've had plenty of time without Bears football, and as much as I love the summer, I don't, I don't mind getting a hint of autumn when we start hearing the the pads cracking on the practice field. I know Courtney Cronin will be there to cover all of it. And as always, we appreciate you joining Forward Progress.
- [40:07]
Courtney Cronin
Yeah, thank you for having me.
- [40:08]
Dan Bernstein
That is Courtney Cronin of espn, our guest here on Forward Progress, a Chicago Bears and NFL podcast on 312 Sports. Progress is stopped. Forward Progress, a Chicago Bears podcast with Dan Bernstein and Matt Abeticola on 312 Sports.
- [40:39]
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