Good, Better, Best (And Why the Smartest Person in the Room Wasn’t the Loudest)
There’s a comforting lie we tell ourselves about greatness: that it announces itself early, loudly, and with the correct recruiting stars next to its name. We imagine prodigies strutting into rooms already glowing, trailing destiny like cologne. What we don’t imagine is a walk-on quarterback staring at an overhead projector, quietly beating everyone else at a test no one will remember—except that it turned out to be the whole test.
In 2006, inside a North Carolina meeting room that smelled faintly of dry erase markers and ambition, quarterbacks were being quizzed on football like it was forensic accounting. Not just what play was called, but why, what could go wrong, what could be changed, what else it secretly enabled. It was football as multivariable calculus.
And the guy who kept winning wasn’t the starter. Or the prized recruit. Or the veteran. It was Ben Johnson—a walk-on, rising junior, the human equivalent of “Who invited this guy?”
Which is funny, because it turns out he was already doing what great coaches do: solving the whole system, not just memorizing the answers.
The Mistake We Make About Talent
We tend to confuse confidence with comprehension. Loud answers feel smart. Fast answers feel gifted. But Johnson’s advantage wasn’t speed—it was depth. He didn’t just know the play; he knew its cousins, its enemies, its secret escape hatches.
Most people learn systems the way tourists learn cities: landmarks, shortcuts, vibes. Johnson learned them like a civil engineer learns fault lines.
That’s why his teammates noticed. That’s why coaches noticed. And that’s why, two decades later, Chicago noticed—because the Bears didn’t just get a coach who called clever plays. They got someone who understands why clever stops working.
Chicago: Where Quarterbacks Go to Die (Until They Don’t)
Chicago loves football the way some cities love opera or wine: deeply, obsessively, and with a tendency to suffer for it. This is a franchise whose most successful modern offenses were described using words like “gritty” and “punishing,” which are polite ways of saying “you will not enjoy this.”
The Bears have never had a 4,000-yard passer. Their Super Bowl wins came with quarterbacks who survived games rather than shaped them. Even Jim McMahon—patron saint of Chicago swagger—once said it was where quarterbacks go to die.
So when Ben Johnson arrived and immediately made the Bears… fun? That was disorienting. Like discovering your accountant moonlights as a jazz pianist.
Caleb Williams, a quarterback who spent his rookie year absorbing 63 sacks like a crash-test dummy, suddenly looked like someone who might enjoy his job. The offense ranked sixth in yards. Records fell. Comebacks piled up. Chicago didn’t just win—it learned new emotions.
And none of it felt accidental.
Insight One: Mastery Is Pattern Recognition Under Stress
Johnson’s story keeps circling back to the same habit: watching quietly, absorbing relentlessly, then acting decisively. In high school, he’d come to the sideline and suggest plays because he had already mapped the defense in his head. At UNC, he treated scout-team reps like life-or-death because habits don’t know the difference between practice and reality.
This is the part we underestimate. Mastery isn’t brilliance in calm moments—it’s clarity when things are messy. When defenses shift. When protection breaks. When you’re down late and everyone else is guessing.
Johnson doesn’t guess. He recognizes.
That’s not talent. That’s training.
Insight Two: The People Who Improve the Fastest Are Willing to Be Uncomfortable the Longest
There’s a moment in Johnson’s high school career that reads like a personality test disguised as a football anecdote. He’s told he can stay with his friends, play junior varsity, have fun—or he can be the scout team quarterback, get pummeled daily, and make everyone else better.
He doesn’t hesitate.
“I want to do whatever’s best for the team.”
That sentence sounds noble until you realize what it costs. Less glory. More pain. Fewer games. More bruises.
Most people optimize for comfort and then wonder why growth feels slow. Johnson optimized for usefulness—and let comfort catch up later.
Insight Three: Authenticity Beats Charisma (Every Time)
“Good, better, best” is not a cool chant. On paper, it’s dangerously close to motivational-poster territory. In the wrong mouth, it would sound like a youth retreat icebreaker.
And yet, when Johnson leads it in a locker room, grown men scream it like a battle hymn. Not because the words are special—but because the man is consistent.
Authenticity isn’t about originality. It’s about alignment. Johnson lives the thing he repeats. So when he says, “This should be hard,” players believe him—because they’ve seen him make it hard on purpose.
That’s why he can rip his shirt off after a win and not become a meme. (Or rather, become a meme that works.) The energy isn’t performative. It’s earned.
Insight Four: Systems Thinkers Change Cultures by Accident
Johnson didn’t arrive in Chicago talking about culture. He talked about preparation, failure, and load. He talked about failing early so you don’t fail late. Culture followed like a side effect.
This is how real change happens. Not through slogans, but through standards. Not through speeches, but through repetition.
When players start expecting comebacks instead of fearing deficits, that’s not motivation—that’s conditioning.
The Hot Dog Test
There’s something poetic about a Chicago hot dog stand becoming part of a coaching legend. Free hot dogs for touchdowns. Free hot dogs if the coach takes his shirt off. This is not a think-tank environment.
And yet, it works because Johnson understands something fundamental: leadership isn’t about controlling the narrative. It’s about participating in it without losing yourself.
He didn’t chase the joke. He didn’t kill it either. He let it breathe. That’s emotional intelligence—another system most people don’t realize they’re failing until it’s too late.
The Quiet Thing This Story Is Really About
This isn’t a football story. Football just makes the patterns visible.
It’s about how the most dangerous person in any room is the one who treats complexity as an invitation instead of a threat. The one who studies when no one’s watching. The one who doesn’t rush to speak because they’re still listening.
Ben Johnson didn’t arrive as a savior. He arrived as a solver. And Chicago—famously impatient, famously skeptical—recognized the difference immediately.
Which brings us back to that room in 2006, with the overhead projector and the X’s and O’s. Everyone else was answering the question in front of them.
Johnson was answering the system behind it.
Good, better, best.
Never let it rest.
And maybe—quietly—never confuse loud confidence for real understanding again.