{"id":191844,"date":"2025-09-30T08:22:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T08:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/191844\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T08:22:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T08:22:07","slug":"ben-johnson-is-a-little-bit-disappointed-in-himself-for-cbs-in-game-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/191844\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Johnson is “a little bit disappointed” in himself for CBS in-game interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

NFL coaches routinely submit to in-game interviews by the network handling a given game. Almost as routinely, these interviews consist of uneventful (and largely useless) coachspeak.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Bears coach Ben Johnson\u2019s interview after halftime of his team\u2019s game at Las Vegas was not uneventful.<\/p>\n

First, Johnson interrupted the first question from Aditi Kinkhabwala of CBS, who was prefacing her inquiry by pointing out that the offense had struggled.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey haven\u2019t done anything, you\u2019re right,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

After his answer, Kinkhabwala said, \u201cYou need to change what you\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know, you think so?<\/a>\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna be just fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson addressed the interaction with reporters on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the moment I honestly I didn\u2019t think too much of it,\u201d Johnson said, via Courtney Cronin of ESPN.com. \u201cI\u2019m kind of in game mode. But when I look back at it I am a little bit disappointed<\/a> with what that looks like. I didn\u2019t hear very well and that\u2019s not an excuse but when I thought I heard, it was not a question but I needed to make some changes, I didn\u2019t take that very well so I\u2019ll do a better job with those going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the first half against the Raiders, the Bears gained 90 yards on 35 plays. Las Vegas gained 185 on 25 plays. The Bears had two net rushing yards in the first two quarters. So, yes, the Bears were struggling. (Trailing 14-9 at the time, the Bears eventually won the game, 25-24.)<\/p>\n

The broader point is that the league has created in-game access rules to enhance broadcasts. Coaches know they need to comply. Rarely if ever do those interactions create a headline, because rarely if ever do the coaches say anything but the most basic, perfunctory stuff. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s the latest example of Johnson\u2019s transition for offensive mad scientist to overall team mouthpiece. Communication in all settings entails a very different skillset than cooking up plays like \u201cstumblebum.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rarely if ever will anything the coach says in a press conference or an interview be helpful. The goal is to avoid saying or doing anything that will hurt the broader cause.<\/p>\n

The mere fact that Johnson was talking on Monday about the things he said on Sunday show that he landed on the wrong side of the simple pass\/fail test for in-game interactions with reporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NFL coaches routinely submit to in-game interviews by the network handling a given game. Almost as routinely, these…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-191844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}