CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson said last month that winning the Super Bowl isn't enough for him. He wants to have the highest-scoring offense in NFL history.
If the Bears can put together more weeks like their opener, that goal will be within reach.
Chicago scored eight touchdowns in a 59-37 win over the Carolina Panthers on Sunday. It was the most points in a season opener in the Bears' long, proud history and tied for the second-most points by a team in Week 1, behind only the 1973 Falcons, who put up 62 on the Saints.
And here's the funny thing: The Bears were far from perfect.
They started the game with a fumble, had some costly penalties and even turned the ball over on downs deep in their own territory. Still, they put up 552 yards — including 291 on the ground — and scored two touchdowns in every quarter.
D'Andre Swift paced the running game with 124 yards and three touchdowns.
“That’s amazing,” Swift said of the team's scoring output. “But to come out of a game like that and have so much to clean up. ... I mean, yeah, we’ll take the win, and 59 points is amazing, but it should have been worse.”
That's the mentality Johnson has instilled in his team: They truly think they're going to score on every possession. Before the season, he told The Athletic his goal is “to have the highest-scoring offense ever.”
That's why none of his players were surprised when Johnson went for it on fourth-and-1 from his own 21 in the second quarter with the Bears leading 21-14. It backfired as Caleb Williams came up short on a quarterback sneak, and the Panthers capitalized with a touchdown.
Johnson wouldn't call it a mistake. When asked if he would do it again, he said it depended on the situation.
The Bears seem to thrive off Johnson's aggressive mentality.
Williams, who threw for 269 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 65 yards and two more scores, wasn’t surprised Johnson went for it — and hopes he tries it again.
“Yeah, we got to go get it (the first down) — that's what it says to us,” Williams said. “As players on the field, when coach has that belief, when coach has that trust, when coach has that faith and all of that in us, we have to go get it as players when he calls it. It doesn’t matter what the play is. It’s a mentality play when you’re fourth-and-1. That’s what it comes down to.”
After the game, Johnson didn't back down from his stated aspirations.
“Listen, that will always be the goal — we want to be the highest-scoring, we want to have the most wins, we want to win Super Bowls,” Johnson said. “Like, that’s what we do. We didn’t get into this profession trying to be mediocre, average.”
The 2013 Denver Broncos, led by MVP Peyton Manning, scored the most points in an NFL season with 603, an average of 37.6 points per game.
That was when the NFL played a 16-game season. Teams now play 17.
Johnson said he expects Sunday's game will be the Bears' worst of the season. He expects them to get better each week.
But he was encouraged by how his players handled the early adversity of turning the ball over on their first possession.
“We talked about weathering the storm there early on,” Johnson said. “We had some adversity on that first drive, and yet no one blinks. No one bats an eye. And so that’s probably what I’m most proud of there.”
The players know all about Johnson's goal of becoming the league's most prolific offense.
“That's what we're striving for,” receiver Rome Odonze said. “We have heard the head of the snake, Ben Johnson, say he wants to be the most prolific offense in history and that takes that attention to detail. .. So we are all bought in to that and trying to accomplish that.”
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