<\/p>\n
LAS VEGAS\u2014The Bears\u2019 Ben Johnson is still getting used to his new responsibilities as a first-time head coach, and that includes halftime television interviews.<\/p>\n
With his offense sputtering in the first half Sunday against the Raiders, Johnson came across as contentious and condescending coming out of halftime when he spoke with CBS\u2019 Aditi Kinkhabwala on the broadcast. The Bears went on to win 25-24 on cornerback Josh Blackwell\u2019s blocked field goal in the final minute.<\/p>\n
At the time, though they were down 14-9 going into the third quarter and had just 90 yards of total offense.<\/p>\n
The conversation began with Kinkhabwala trying to ask a question about the offense\u2019s inability to cash in on defensive takeaways when Johnson interjected with, \u201cThey haven\u2019t done anything. You\u2019re right.\u201d<\/p>\n
She followed by asking what he told the team in the locker room, and Johnson said, \u201c”That it wasn\u2019t our brand of football, we\u2019re capable of a lot more, so we\u2019re hitting the reset button here at halftime and we\u2019re going to come back and establish our identity here in the second half.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then it went sideways.<\/p>\n
Kinkhabwala responded, quite reasonably, \u201cSo you need to change what you\u2019re doing?\u201d and Johnson replied, smiling but serious, \u201cI don\u2019t know. You think so? We\u2019re going to be just fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
CBS play-by-play broadcaster Spero Dedes described it as, \u201cBen Johnson, all business. A little intimidation, menacing stare.\u201d<\/p>\n
The video of the exchange has gotten millions of views on social media, and Johnson has drawn criticism for being condescending, regardless of whether that was his intention.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LAS VEGAS\u2014The Bears\u2019 Ben Johnson is still getting used to his new responsibilities as a first-time head coach, and that includes halftime television interviews. With his offense sputtering in the first half Sunday against the Raiders, Johnson came across as contentious and condescending coming out of halftime when he spoke with CBS\u2019 Aditi Kinkhabwala on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[802,795,797,801,796,800,148,798,803,799,804],"class_list":{"0":"post-4571","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-interviews","8":"tag-aditi","9":"tag-bears","10":"tag-ben","11":"tag-cbs","12":"tag-coach","13":"tag-halftime","14":"tag-interview","15":"tag-johnsons","16":"tag-kinkhabwala","17":"tag-uncomfortable","18":"tag-viral"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}