Ben Johnson returns to Motown on Sunday, as the head coach’s Chicago Bears play the Detroit Lions in Week 2, but the team’s former offensive coordinator won’t be getting a standing ovation from his former star playmaker.
“Week 2 is going to be so crazy. I promise you it’s going to be so electric, but as soon as Ben [Johnson] walks in there, we’re booing him,” Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown joked on the latest edition of the “St. Brown Podcast,” which the Lions star hosts with his brother, Equanimeous St. Brown. “I don’t give a f—. We’re all booing him … I just want to be a fly on the wall in his f—— meetings, bro. Like, how is he as a head coach? That is not you, dawg. I know you. Stop acting like this, man.
“Bro, I want to be a fly on the wall for one meeting, just once.”
Johnson was on Detroit’s coaching staff from 2019-24, with Dan Campbell keeping Johnson – whom he worked with on the Miami Dolphins from 2012-15 – on the staff when he took over as head coach in 2021. After being an offensive quality control coach in 2019, tight ends coach from 2020-21 and passing game coordinator in 2021, Johnson became Detroit’s offensive coordinator in 2022.
The Lions ranked in the top five of the NFL in total yards and points in each of Johnson’s three seasons as their offensive coordinator from 2022-24, highlighted by leading the sport with 33.2 points per game last season, back-to-back NFC North division titles (2023-24) and a 15-2 record in 2024.
Both Detroit and Chicago are coming off Week 1 losses, as the Lions lost on the road to the Green Bay Packers (27-13) and the Bears blew an 11-point fourth quarter lead at home to the Minnesota Vikings, losing 27-24. St. Brown totaled four receptions for 45 yards on six targets for Detroit.
St. Brown, a two-time All-Pro and three-time Pro Bowler whom Detroit selected in the fourth round of the 2021 NFL Draft, has totaled 100-plus receptions and 1,100-plus receiving yards in each of the past three complete seasons, averaging 113.3 receptions for 1,313.0 yards and 9.3 touchdowns per year. As for St. Brown’s older brother, Equanimeous St. Brown last appeared in the NFL with the New Orleans Saints in 2024, preceded by two seasons with the Bears (2022-23) and three active seasons with the Packers (2018, 2020-21).
Detroit swept the regular-season series with Chicago in 2024. The Lions take on the Bears on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET on FOX and the FOX Sports app.
The other side:
Johnson talked about his impending return to Detroit on Wednesday.
“My mind is going to be about just winning the football game,” Johnson said. “That’s really what it’s going to come down to, is us going out there and looking to find our first victory of the season. It’ll be a tough environment. That place has really turned into one of the strongest home field advantage places, I think, in the National Football League, so we’ll have our work cut out for us. We’ll have to be able to communicate within that hostile environment. I think we’ll find out a lot about ourselves.”
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