Is Ben Johnson the perfect coach to get the most out of Ashton Jeanty?

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A team set to be busy in the 2025 NFL Draft will be the Chicago Bears, who hold seven total picks in Green Bay when the draft begins on April 24. But what will draw the most intrigue is what the Bears decide to do with the No. 10 overall pick.

After going 5-12 last season and finishing bottom of the NFC North, Chicago are looking at the draft as a springboard as they enter a new era under first-year head coach Ben Johnson.

On the latest episode of “The Athletic Football Show,” the second of our “On the Clock” series, Robert Mays was joined by Danny Kelly from The Ringer to break down why the Bears should draft Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty at No.10. Watch the full episode below.

A partial transcript has been edited for clarity and length. The full episode is available on YouTube below or in “The Athletic Football Show” feed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. 

Robert: The Chicago Bears are at number 10. Option one is to draft Ashton Jeanty, as he’s still available in this exercise. Or I’m going to give you a slight hallway off this, you can also take Tyler Warren if that interests you. I’m fudging this here, but let’s call this non-premium position offensive weapons, and you can draft one. Option two was going to be draft Will Campbell or Armand Membou if they were still available, but they no longer are, so that’s off the board. Let’s just call Tyler Warren option two. So Ashton Jeanty is option one, and Tyler Warren is option two. Option number three: Draft a pass rusher. It doesn’t matter who it is or where you’re picking from, just your best pass rusher that you have available. What are you doing if you are the GM of the Chicago Bears?

Danny: This feels like such a trap (laughs). I’m taking Ashton Jeanty here. I understand all the arguments because I’ve been making some of them, the anti-running back in the first round or the top 10. But I will say of all the coaches I would trust to get the most out of a top-tier running back pick, it would be the guy the Bears just hired. Obviously, the offensive line helped Ben Johnson design a cool offense in Detroit, and that’s a huge part of this. I think they’ve made some moves on the offensive line to try and get back towards the average point in the middle of the league somewhere, which is a good thing. They’re not going to be the Lions this year, but having some average play would be great. I think Ben Johnson would have some fun ideas on using Jeanty in the passing game and the screen game. Jeanty really elevates their run game right away and gives them a guy who can create. The difference between him and D’Andre Swift is just massive in terms of attitude, physicality, intensity, and just the offensive line and offense in general potentially rallying around him. I know this sounds wishy-washy, but Jeanty really could change the identity of the run game a lot for them, and that could really help on the margins in terms of their passing game. It could also make the defense actually respect their run game. So there are ways to defend this, and it would be super fun. It would be good for Caleb Williams. It would be good for Ben Johnson to have a top-tier talent at running back that he could utilize. It means you have to respect the run game that much more. That being said, they have to keep working on that offensive line. But they can still do that in this draft, in the second round. To me, Jeanty is the clear-cut best player available for this team right here. And I do think you can make logical arguments — maybe not from a salary point of view — but from a talent and overall impact on the offense point of view, that he’s going to help the most here.

Robert: I think that’s a reasonable argument. In a vacuum, we’ve talked about this on a theoretical level over the last three weeks, and whenever it’s come up I’ve always been like, “Eh, I don’t know.” And it’s for a few different reasons. To me, it feels like a luxury pick to take a running back in the top 10, it just does.

Danny: It’s a deep class at running back too, right?

Robert: Right. And this is a team with three picks in the top 41, so you could take a running back with either of those high second-round picks if you wanted to — which we didn’t point out about the Panthers before. The Panthers have a late second-rounder because they have the Rams’ second-round pick as part of the Braden Fiske trade. They traded their second-rounder to the Bears as a little sweetener for the number one overall pick trade a couple of years ago.

Danny: That’s still happening?

Robert: We’re still cashing in on that, which is very nice (laughs). But because it’s a deep running back class and you can potentially get one later, that could be an option.

If one of the offensive linemen were available, that would probably have been my choice, and it’s for this reason: Braxton Jones is going to be a free agent after this year. I was fine passing on guys like Olu Fashanu last year because Braxton Jones still had two years left on his rookie deal. Let’s see if he’s a guy that’s worth potentially extending before we make a move to essentially replace him. Because you drafted Darnell Wright in the top 10 two years ago, you’re not replacing that guy. But with Braxton Jones coming off an injury and hitting free agency after this season, I think it’s easier to talk yourself into replacing him as part of this overall plan. Will Johnson or Armand Membou would theoretically be insurance across the entire line for this year. Let’s say Jonah Jackson gets hurt, which he does, and you need a little bit of a stopgap, you have a guy like Membou, and then he could potentially be your long-term answer at left tackle. I liked that as a general idea.

With both of those guys gone here in this exercise, now you’re onto the tight ends as the best possible options, or pass rushers where all of them have questions. They’re either tweener linebackers, which I don’t think fits who the Bears are. They’re solidified at linebacker, and those aren’t the body types I think Dennis Allen (Bears defensive coordinator) wants to seek out. Or you have guys like Shemar Stewart and Mykel Williams, who may fit the body type question, but there are productivity issues — definite question marks with both of those guys. Because of all of that, and because I’ve watched Ashton Jeanty play football a lot since the time I last talked about this, I’m now more open to that option than I probably was a month ago.

Danny: I could totally understand if people thought this was silly and stupid. But like you laid out, if they were to switch some picks around and take a pass rusher here and a running back in the second round, you would get a pass rusher that has a lot of question marks. Whether it’s Jalon Walker with the size, or the guys you mentioned in Shemar Stewart and Mykel Williams, where the productivity is questionable. They do have high ceilings, but what are they providing you in year one? You can make the same arguments with those positions as you can with running back. And I feel like Ashton Jeanty is going to be a very good player for them right away. And they’re going to reap those benefits right away for a long time with him.

You can listen to full episodes of The Athletic Football Show for free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and watch on YouTube.

(Top Photo: Brian Losness-Imagn Images)

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