When Ben Johnson was the offensive coordinator of the Lions, I interviewed people close to him for a profile that never quite got off the ground. One of my favorite anecdotes came from his sister, who mentioned that Johnson, as a kid, used to carry around a blank notebook and fill it with ascending numbers. One page would be the numbers 1–123, for example, written out by hand. The next page would be 124–236. And so on.
I thought of this when imagining how most people would be sick to their stomachs at the idea of their starting quarterback being out for any significant period of time, as Caleb Williams certainly could be after an ugly-looking hamstring injury in a 9–3 loss to the Vikings on Sunday. But Johnson keeps giving us examples—dating back to his childhood, apparently—that he is built differently and consumed by the task at hand. The tired among us are here only when situations are at their optimal. The wired come to life when the pursuit of the NFL scoring record remains on the table, and Tyson Bagent has the keys to the NFL’s most explosive offense for an undetermined amount of time. Seriously, toss away your platitude-filled generic coaching profile about how the guy is a hard worker. Give me the one where he’s so dedicated that it makes you The Strangers-level uncomfortable.
