Ben Johnson chose the Bears over the Raiders on Monday and it was something we maybe should have seen coming.
For years, agents have been using the Raiders to leverage money from other teams and it’s fair to wonder if there wasn’t some gamesmanship to Johnson’s reported interest in the Raiders.
League insider David Kaplan reported on Monday evening that Bears owner George McCaskey signed off on a massive contract for Johnson and whether intentional or not, the Raiders played into those negotiations.
For over a week, all the talk around Johnson was how he and Tom Brady hit it off in the interview process and Johnson was essentially a shoo-in to be the next head coach in Las Vegas unless something crazy happened.
There were rumors of the enormous contract Mark Davis was willing to give Johnson, but in the end it all played out like a well-designed leverage maneuver to get money from the Bears.
Someone with knowledge of the intense bidding for Ben Johnson’s services just told me: “****, George McCaskey stepped up. He got to a place where he had to be uncomfortable w/the 💰 + he didn’t blink. He approved big 💰. Many folks in the NFL are super surprised they got Ben.”
A separate report that supports the leverage theory came from FOX Sports insider Jordan Schultz.
“From my understanding — and as I mentioned last week — there was never a point when the Raiders were the frontrunners for Ben Johnson,” Schultz reported on X on Monday. “They had an interview that went really well, but Chicago was the early favorite in this process, and they finalized it today.”
The other scenario that could have stalled negotiations between the Raiders and Johnson might have been the matter of the general manager.
It was rumored that Brady and Johnson weren’t in full agreement on the incoming GM, but Las Vegas Review-Journal insider Vinny Bonsignore suggested Johnson was going to get to pick his GM.
It might be worth getting a second opinion on that story, though, because it’s hard to imagine Brady and company would immediately own up to losing Johnson because of a GM squabble.
Bonsignore reported that Johnson simply chose the team with the better quarterback, but nothing has changed in Chicago and Las Vegas in the last 10 days.
There was too much hype around the Raiders and Johnson for the former Lions OC to suddenly wake up and realize Aidan O’Connell was the starting quarterback in Las Vegas.
Whether the Raiders were a pawn in Johnson’s negotiations or they lost him because of dispute over the GM, neither situation would be the most flattering for the organization.
There will be more details to unpack in the days ahead, but these are the two theories around Johnson and his stiff arm of the Raiders that make the most sense for now.
x: @raidersbeat
