Ben Johnson: Bears will have to earn the right to run trick plays

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Transcript

00:00I loved when you talked about not installing the Lions offense in Chicago.

00:04It's going to be an offense tailored around the skill set of the players you have.

00:08And yet you still have to have the ideas that you bring to the table.

00:12Could you distinguish between what we have referred to often in this town and football

00:17cities as a play collector, guys who do have great innovation and offensive minds,

00:22versus play callers and how you have to sequence plays early to set them up for later,

00:28and how that all comes together?

00:30Because you've got to have more than just these trick plays that people remember.

00:34You've got to have an overall system plan.

00:37Yeah, listen, it's always predicated on the foundation and the fundamentals.

00:42And so springtime is going to be about simple things like ball security,

00:47how to catch the football, how to run after catch, proper fundamentals of blocking.

00:52Like these are the building blocks that we cannot overlook.

00:57All the bells and whistles, those are fun.

00:59Those are fun for the fans.

01:00And I'll tell the guys this as well.

01:03We are in the entertainment industry, and we are entertainers on game day.

01:07And that's part of it.

01:08We're competitors, and we need to win.

01:10But also, let's have a little fun while we're doing it.

01:14And so that's a big portion of it.

01:16But none of it can be done unless the fundamentals are really hammered home.

01:20And so that'll be our challenge here.

01:22How far can we push the fun part, the trick plays, all that stuff?

01:28I'd love to get to it, but we'll see what our guys can handle, what they can do well.

01:32End of the day, we're going to do things that we trust our players to do.

01:37As a play caller, I do love the thought of showing one thing early in the game

01:43and circling back to something different later.

01:46I love the thought of what does our last four games look like to the opposition?

01:51Because that's probably what they're practicing.

01:53So how can we use that information against them?

01:56All those things, they all play a part in terms of the game plan and how we call it.

02:01But really, it comes down for our players.

02:05They have to understand a deuce block, a deuce combination in the run game.

02:10Man, we've got to master that fundamental.

02:12And once we do that, then we can add a bunch of different layers to it.