Rich’s Message to Chicago Bears Fans Worried about a Ben Johnson Sophomore Slump

Nathan called in from Chicago with a good problem. The energy around the Bears is off the charts, between the Rams game on the schedule, the draft and Caleb Williams on the cover of Madden, and he was desperate to talk himself out of fearing a sophomore slump in the Ben Johnson era.

Rich was happy to play therapist. He started by admiring that Madden cover, a shot of Williams going full jumpman against the Packers with the season on the line, and noted the quarterback carries a 90 rating to match. Williams even discussed it on the Kelce brothers' New Heights podcast, which Rich likened, affectionately, to Jazz Chisholm landing on the Tonight Show with a .230 average.

On the actual worry, Rich did not buy it. The coach is excellent, he told Nathan, the roster is excellent, and this group is as good as last year if not better. He also offered a small technical correction: a sophomore slump would belong to Ben Johnson in year two as a head coach, not to Williams, who is entering year three.

When Nathan admitted he was genuinely nervous because things are finally good in Chicago, Rich gave him the only prescription that fit. Enjoy it. Go outside on a beautiful day in the best city in America for nice weather, grab a hot dog or a deep dish, and stop borrowing trouble in June.

Then Rich could not resist a warning rooted in the week's best bit. If Nathan finds himself near Ben Johnson's podium, do not set a phone down without turning on Do Not Disturb. That referenced a press conference in which a recording phone, left on the lectern, kept interrupting Johnson until he asked, with rising edge, for someone to take their phone so he would not be interrupted again.

The mystery got solved with class. Jay Cohen of the Associated Press owned it publicly, apologizing all around and promising it would not happen again. Rich joked that the punishment was a revoked credential before quickly walking it back, and the desk riffed on solutions, from a phone with a time limit to an old reel-to-reel recorder heavy enough to tip the podium like Fred Flintstone's car.

The button, fittingly, was about accountability. The desk imagined the proudest version of owning it, a cheerful "you damn right it's me," exactly the kind of ownership Rich figured a coach like Johnson would respect. As for the larger panic, Rich's closing note doubled as advice for Nathan and the Bears alike: it is June, relax.