Bears' bad practice habits reflect poorly on the players — and GM Ryan Poles

Bears coach Ben Johnson spent much of his ramp-up to the regular season trying to instill good work habits in his team. His next-level "attention to detail" was celebrated throughout the offseason and training camp. He pulled the offense out of 7-on-7 drills on the very first day of training camp because it wasn't lining up properly. He held a virtual live scrimmage to prime his team for a joint practice with the Dolphins, which provided a big payoff.

And eight days into the regular season, he has a team with bad practice habits.

"I think our practice habits are yet to reflect a championship-caliber team," Johnson told reporters at Halas Hall on Wednesday. "We should be going to the football, finishing hard. We talk about it all the time with the offensive players, our finish and our technique, they need to show up on the practice field. That's how it shows up on game day.

"Simple things of 'how do we properly block? How do we catch the ball? Ball security and things like that. It's the little things that you learn in youth league football that even at this level, they make a huge difference."

That's a startling revelation two weeks into the regular season and just nine weeks since the start of training camp. This is the time when players should be particularly on-point, trying to impress the new coach. Instead they're disappointing him. What happened to attention to detail? What about the new culture? What about the captains and leaders who are supposed to hold teammates accountable?

When these issues cropped up last year, it was Matt Eberfus' fault. And to some extent, Johnson's lament is self-indicting. It's on the coach to instill those habits, and probably not a good sign that the impact of Johnson's message ["practice like you play"] has dissipated even more quickly than the dreaded Marc Trestman era. And this is on top of surprising discipline issues in the actual games — like 23 penalties, including six false starts and an illegal shift.

On the other hand, when a team has poor practice habits for both Matt Eberflus and Ben Johnson — two very different NFL head coaches — maybe the problem is the players and not the coaching. That trail leads to general manager Ryan Poles, whose roster building has come under increasing fire as the Bears' 0-2 start has been marked by disappointing play from some of his biggest acquisitions: defensive end Montez Sweat, wide receiver D.J. Moore and linebacker Tremaine Edmunds; and an underwhelming start from the rookie class: including tight end Colston Loveland, offensive tackle Ozzy Trapilo, wide receiver Luther Burden and defensive tackle Shemar Turner.

And it's not just production where Poles' acquisitions have been lacking, but leadership. The Bears, despite having eight captains, had a major leadership issue last season under Eberflus — which was painfully apparent when the Bears imploded after the Fail Mary loss to the Commanders — losing 10 consecutive games, with the firings of offensive coordinator Shane Waldron and Eberflus unable to stop the bleeding.

Poles himself acknowledged the leadership problem after the season when he implored veterans to take more of a leadership role and say something if they see something. That works sometimes but more often leadership is innate, a quality that demands a GM's intuition about people as much as his ability to evaluate film and build a scouting staff.

The Bears need leaders, and identifying alpha dogs is not a Poles strength. Guard Joe Thuney was one of the most respected players on the Chiefs — he was voted their MVP last season over Patrick Mahomes — but he's not an alpha dog. Edmunds, T.J. Edwards and Kevin Byard have playoff experience, but as productive as they were, they were complementary players on their playoff teams. Many key Bears players have never played on a winning team: in the NFL — Sweat (six seasons), Moore (seven seasons), Drew Dalman (four), Jaylon Johnson (five), Cole Kmet (five) and Andrew Billings (eight). That includes five of the seven highest-paid players on the team (by salary cap number).

That doesn't mean you can't win with them — they're all productive players. And it's all good if Johnson can work his magic and turn this offense into the juggernaut he had in Detroit. Winning makes everyone a leader. But the longer this takes, the lack of those natural leaders who can will a team to "practice like you play" and lift a team above the muck and lead it through tough times becomes more and more glaring.

It's worth noting that Johnson has brought up the practice issue in back-to-back press conferences this week. "The way we talk about it as a coaching staff going into this week is we're going to have a lot more competition," Johnson told reporters on Monday. "I've alluded to it before. What these guys look like when the ball's not in their hands is a big deal for us.

"There were some plays [against the Lions in a 52-21 loss on Sunday] that we weren't quite as pleased with what that looked like on tape. So we're going to find out this week at practice who wants to practice hard and who wants to be a little bit more involved with the game plan here going into Sunday."

It sure seems like Johnson is quickly learning about the players he inherited, and perhaps about the general manager who acquired them. This team is making Ben Johnson look bad, and enough of Dan Campbell has rubbed off on Johnson that he's not going to take it for long. He and Poles are aligned contractually, reportedly through 2029. But if it turns out the roster is the issue, they won't be aligned for too long.

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