{"id":22194,"date":"2025-09-18T13:25:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T13:25:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=22194"},"modified":"2025-09-18T13:25:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T13:25:04","slug":"bears-ben-johnson-not-worried-about-tom-brady-production-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=22194","title":{"rendered":"Bears&#8217; Ben Johnson not worried about Tom Brady production meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<\/p>\n<ul class=\"authors\">\n<li class=\"mugshot-shown\">\n<p>Courtney Cronin<span class=\"timestamp \">Sep 17, 2025, 02:28 PM ET<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Close<\/p>\n<ul>Courtney Cronin joined ESPN in 2017, originally covering the Minnesota Vikings before switching to the Chicago Bears in 2022. Courtney is a frequent panelist on Around the Horn and host of Best Week Ever and GameNight on ESPN Radio. She also co-hosts The Chicago Bears Podcast on ESPN 1000. She previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News as a multimedia sports journalist.<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>LAKE FOREST, Ill. &#8212; Ben Johnson isn&#8217;t worried about divulging information that can be used against the Chicago Bears when he participates in production meetings with Tom Brady and the Fox broadcast crew ahead of Sunday&#8217;s game against the Dallas Cowboys.<\/p>\n<p>The dual roles held by Brady, an analyst for Fox&#8217;s &#8220;America&#8217;s Game of the Week&#8221; and a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, have raised concerns over a conflict of interest.<\/p>\n<p>Brady will be on the call from Soldier Field on Sunday, one week before the Raiders host the Bears at Allegiant Stadium in Week 4.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"editorial-title\">Editor&#8217;s Picks<\/h2>\n<p>2 Related<\/p>\n<p>Johnson brushed off concerns over a competitive disadvantage for the Bears that could come from his conversations with Brady ahead of the game.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m really not worried about it,&#8221; Johnson said. &#8220;I mean, we change week to week in terms of what we do. Schematically, he&#8217;s going to be able to turn on the tape and see what everyone else in the world is seeing right now.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Personnel-wise, really the same thing. It&#8217;s not like I&#8217;m going to sit down with him and say, &#8216;Hey, don&#8217;t do this to Caleb Williams or you might get it!&#8217; Like, there&#8217;s not going to be any trade secrets that are going to be exchanged. But I really don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s that big of a deal to be honest with you.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer echoed Johnson&#8217;s sentiments Wednesday, sarcastically adding that he is &#8220;not even going to talk to Tom.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Dallas plays Las Vegas on Nov. 17 when Schottenheimer reunites with Raiders coach Pete Carroll.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hey look, everybody has everybody&#8217;s playbooks,&#8221; Schottenheimer said. &#8220;Everybody knows somebody that knows somebody that&#8217;s been someplace.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t have a problem with [Brady&#8217;s situation]. Some people might, but look, I&#8217;ll talk football with anybody. I love the game and what Tom does with his ownership position is up to Tom. But in terms of me being concerned about something I might say to Tom getting back to Pete or getting back to them, I think Pete and I know each other pretty well.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Brady was seen sitting in the coaches&#8217; booth wearing a headset during the first quarter of the Raiders&#8217; 20-9 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>The NFL said Tuesday in a statement that Brady is &#8220;prohibited from going to a team facility for practices or production meetings.&#8221; But the former star quarterback is allowed to sit in the coaches&#8217; booth.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There are no policies that prohibit an owner from sitting in the coaches&#8217; booth or wearing a headset during a game,&#8221; NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy said. &#8220;Brady was sitting in the booth in his capacity as a limited partner.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;All personnel sitting in the booth must abide by policies that prohibit the use of electronic devices other than league-issued equipment such as a Microsoft Surface Tablet for the Sideline Viewing System.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Johnson has been part of production meetings throughout the preseason and with ESPN and Fox crews in each of the past two weeks. The first-year Bears coach said he is conditioned not to provide any privileged information and will continue that approach.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Man, I&#8217;ve been careful with everything I&#8217;ve said since the season started,&#8221; Johnson said. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been in pure coachspeak mode since this season has started. So to me, it&#8217;s just business as usual. I&#8217;m just fine. I like Tom, and we have a really good relationship.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>ESPN&#8217;s Todd Archer contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtney CroninSep 17, 2025, 02:28 PM ET Close Courtney Cronin joined ESPN in 2017, originally covering the Minnesota Vikings before switching to the Chicago Bears in 2022. Courtney is a frequent panelist on Around the Horn and host of Best Week Ever and GameNight on ESPN Radio. She also co-hosts The Chicago Bears Podcast on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[8630,3967,13616,4302,582,6184,2286,975],"class_list":{"0":"post-22194","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-bears","9":"tag-ben","10":"tag-brady","11":"tag-johnson","12":"tag-meeting","13":"tag-production","14":"tag-tom","15":"tag-worried"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}