After the Chicago Bears' 30-16 loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday, head coach Ben Johnson did not mince words to say there are limits to what coaching can do in the effort to clean up the team's penalty issues.
"The penalties to me, is what stands out first and foremost. We still have some of the pre-snap issues ... that stuff adds up, and it hurts us", Johnson said.
"We get away with it occasionally, but it's not the way you win in this league ... I really put it on the leaders in that locker room ... us coaches, we've been pounding that drum now for a while and we haven't gotten the results we wanted. So, it's on the leaders here on this team to get it right."
The Bears were penalized 11 times for 79 yards against the Ravens. It wasn't the only reason they lost, but it sure did make it harder to get anything done.
There's a fine line between putting the onus on players to improve and blaming them when things don't go right. Johnson has walked that line all season long, without falling on the wrong side of it. Given how he has talked about penalties publicly, you can bet the message has carried over behind the scenes. The message just isn't getting through.
The offense's struggles with pre-snap penalties, which a couple of players have taken ownership of publicly, invite questions about the complexity of Johnson's system and if things need to be simplified.
Ben Johnson doubles down on demand from Bears' locker room leadership
Johnson was on ESPN 1000 with Jeff Joniak Monday morning. Once again, he called for more ownership from the Bears' locker room regarding the issue with penalties.
"We're here as coaches, we're gonna help support, we're going to challenge these guys and we're going to be along there with them every step of the way," Johnson said. "But I think it would go a long way if we just had maybe just a little more ownership in that locker room to take the bull by the horns here so that we do get this cleaned up."
Johnson said he thinks the Bears have the right leaders in place, but the loss to the Ravens could also be a needed wake-up call.
"We've got a number of guys who are leaders on this team, and I think now that it's bit us in the rear end with a loss, I think it opens your eyes a little bit more like, 'Okay, we do need to clean this up if we want to get to where we want to go."
Read more: Ben Johnson takes blame for late sequence that was microcosm of Bears' bad day
If Johnson has taken nothing else from his former boss Dan Campbell, it's the importance of being direct with players and not sugarcoating things. The back-to-back public messages about cleaning up penalties might land oddly for some fans, but it's a sentiment that has surely already been delivered to Bears' players and the appropriate leaders in the locker room.