In February, I wrote an article titled — Expect more play-action for Caleb Williams in 2025 from Ben Johnson — to explain how much play-action passing was a cheat code for teams and how excited I was that Ben Johnson would be coaching my favorite team.

Johnson’s offense is his own creation. He’s not a part of the McVay or Shanahan tree, which is littered throughout the league. He developed his philosophy under several offensive coaches, including former Bear John Shoop, and while we didn’t know exactly how his Chicago offense would look, we knew he’d want to do two things: run the ball and have a play-action scheme that makes sense.

That has come to fruition in 2025.

As the offensive coordinator with the Detroit Lions, Johnson’s team ranked fourth, first, and first in play-action pass a

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