How Ben Johnson Can Be Successful in Year No. 1 as Lions Offensive Coordinator

Read more on how Ben Johnson can be successful in his first season as Detroit Lions offensive coordinator.

There’s an old saying in life that people don’t care about what you know, until they know you care.

Clearly, from all early indications, players on the Detroit Lions’ offense know that new offensive coordinator Ben Johnson cares.

How does that show?

It shows in the quotes coming out of the players themselves, and it shows in how Johnson has reported to have gone about things.

Players who have major roles on this team are saying Johnson is an excellent communicator, and that has a lot to do with the success of any offensive coordinator.

“He’s an incredible communicator,” Detroit center Frank Ragnow told reporters. “He’s super relatable. I think him just being younger helps for sure, but then he’s just super relatable. Like I said earlier, this is complicating things we’re doing as an offense, but the way he simplifies it and gets it across to guys, so guys can be just like [snapping] ‘this, this,’ play fast. And, I think that’s very special.”

Coming across as being genuine is huge, too.

All of these things point to reasons to be optimistic about the foundation Johnson has laid out for winning.

Simply being good at drawing up X’s and O’s is only half the battle. The other half is being able lead men and knowing how to create buy-in.

Any system can win, as long as it’s authentic to the coach.

Here now are three ways Johnson can be successful in year one as the offensive coordinator of the Lions. 

1.) Identify and aggressively attack defenses' greatest vulnerabilities

I had the privilege of being on staff with offensive coordinator Charlie Weis while with the Jets. It was well known throughout the building that Weis had a knack for finding and exploiting mismatches in opponents.

Strategically speaking, Johnson needs to drill into the game film of opposing offenses.

It takes more than tendency charting and knowing that Minnesota likes to blitz a safety 42 percent of the time on third downs. 

It’s about knowing that safety inside and out. It’s about evaluating that safety and knowing his weaknesses and relentlessly attacking those weaknesses.

If a cornerback is stiff and can’t change direction quickly, it’s about game-planning the daylights out of that weakness and designing routes galore that feature quick breakpoints.

It’s about knowing every defense on the schedule intimately.

Junfu Han, USA TODAY NETWORK

2.) Get creative

Week in and week out, we see NFL offenses and defenses run out of similar formations.

Johnson can really help himself be successful by breaking out of these traditional shells.

If he is able to do some things “out of the box," it will go a long way toward positioning this team to win.

Look at what the “Wildcat” did for the Dolphins. They went from being the worst team in the league in 2007 (1-15) to being in the playoffs one year later in 2008 (11-5). That was during the time that Lions head coach Dan Campbell’s mentor, Bill Parcells, was the executive vice president in Miami.

Different formations create confusion for defenses that are accustomed to seeing the same thing week after week.

3.) Game-planning to Detroit’s greatest personnel strengths

Intimately knowing and playing to the greatest strengths of his own offensive unit will go a long ways, too. Running the plays Jared Goff likes best and is best at, as well as knowing what his running backs are best at and giving them those opportunities, will make a big-time impact throughout the course of the 2022 campaign.

It’s about identifying and being able to maximize potential.

If he is able to effectively create and facilitate a situation where everyone can play to their strengths as a group, this could be special.

Because in reality, there is really not that much of a margin between teams that win and teams that lose.