The Denver Broncos and rest of the AFC West may have dodged a bullet when the Chicago Bears hired Ben Johnson to be their head coach. For a while there, momentum seemed to be building for Johnson to head over the Las Vegas to coach the Raiders, and many thought that minority Raiders' owner Tom Brady was going to be enough to get Johnson in the Silver and Black.
Well, in the afternoon on Monday, news broke that the Chicago Bears had actually won the Ben Johnson sweepstakes, so he still stay in the NFC North to coach up Caleb Williams, the rookie QB who went first overall in the 2024 NFL Draft.
The Raiders are Raidering!
And now for the Raiders, a rudderless, underwhelming, and broken franchise, they may now have to pivot to their second or even third option depending on who they like the most internally. While the Raiders are quite a ways away from competing, Ben Johnson would have brought a sharp offensive mind to the Raiders, and that's really been what they have been missing for years now.
They need a franchise QB and a competent head coach that knows how to win with offense, as that is the way the NFL has been trending for years now. Fortunately, though, the Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Chargers, and Kansas City Chiefs don't have to worry about the possibility that Ben Johnson is the next Sean McVay.
In a year where the AFC West was among the best divisions in football, the Las Vegas Raiders were among the worst teams in the NFL, firing head coach Antonio Pierce and GM Tom Telesco after just one season. They were brought in the year prior, but neither move was all that good to begin with.
Telesco did draft tight end Brock Bowers, but taking a tight end in the first round, especially for the Raiders, was an odd move at best. In the coming days, it's likely that the Las Vegas Raiders make a head coaching move, and it's probably not going to be all that exciting for them.
The team is also likely out of range for Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders in the 2025 NFL Draft unless they plan on trading up. Their situation somehow got worse with missing out on Ben Johnson, and all the rest of the AFC West can do is just point and laugh at the ineptitude of the franchise.