On his podcast, Amon-Ra St. Brown gave his full thoughts on former Lions OC Ben Johnson taking the Chicago Bears head coach job.
The dust is still settling on Ben Johnson’s somewhat shocking decision to take the head coaching job with the Chicago Bears . Obviously, it was Johnson’s time to go, but many Detroit Lions fans were upset that he chose to go to a division rival. Outside of a great Instagram post from running back David Montgomery , we haven’t seen many Lions players react to the news. That changed on Wednesday, when the latest St. Brown Podcast dropped, and Amon-Ra St. Brown offered his thoughts.
Here’s a transcript of what St. Brown had to say.
“Obviously, I love Ben. One of my favorite coaches that I’ve ever had, I would say for sure. He’s smart, he’s one of the hardest working coaches that I’ve been around. But obviously, I would want to have him in Detroit forever, but that’s not the reality of things. Other teams are going to approach him. He’s going to want to—I feel like every coach, not every coach, but a lot of coaches want to be a head coach at one point in their lives if they can. This is the best opportunity, I think, for him to leave. If he didn’t leave this year, I feel like teams would say, “Oh, what’s wrong with him? He had the most points.’ We had the highest-scoring offense in the league. We lost early, unfortunately, but I feel like this was the year for him to leave and he took it. So I don’t blame him.”
Then St. Brown wanted to address some Lions fans who had accused Johnson of phoning in the Lions’ Divisional Round loss to the Washington Commanders . Some believed Johnson was too distracted by head coaching opportunities to focus on the gameplan ahead. Safe to say, St. Brown disagreed.
“Everyone on Twitter—the Lions fans—fucking hating him, talking about, ‘He didn’t prepare for this (playoff game). He was taking interviews on the bye week.’ Trust me. I know Ben. He was as locked in as can be for that game,” St. Brown said.
St. Brown also has talked to Johnson since he accepted the job. He shared some of their playful banter on the podcast.
“I told him, I said, ‘For two times a year, Ben, we’re going to fuck you up,’” St. Brown said. “He goes, ‘I’ma fuck you up.’ I said, ‘Okay, we’ll see.’ I told him I know all the plays he likes to run. I know all his tendencies. But we were just going back and forth messing around. It’s funny. He’s like, ‘If I want to be the best, I’ve got to beat the best, right?’”
Ultimately, St. Brown was happy for his former offensive coordinator.
“I love Ben. I’m happy for him, happy for his family, his kids. I love his kids, wife is amazing.”
… though he clearly wasn’t thrilled about him going to a divisional rival.
“I didn’t know if he was going to take the Bears job, if I’m being honest, but he took it.”
You can watch the latest St. Brown Podcast below: