Getty Bears defensive coordinator Sean Desai has responded to Jaylon Johnson saying half the locker room was in tank mode.
It seems Chicago Bears defensive coordinator Sean Desai doesn’t agree with the recent comments made by starting cornerback Jaylon Johnson.
In a December 16 appearance on Barstool Sports’ Red Line Radio, Johnson was asked about the state of the Bears’ locker room, and he raised some eyebrows when he stated that the team had two different factions: players who are still fighting hard, and players that are going into tank mode. Here’s what he said:
“You have the side of the locker room that is starting to go into the tank and you have the guys that are still trying to fight and figure out how we can get better. … You definitely have the ups and downs in the locker room as expected.”
Desai was asked about Johnson’s comments, and he says he doesn’t see it that way.
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Desai: I Haven’t Seen Our Guys Tanking
When he was asked on December 17 whether he had heard about Johnson’s tanking comments, and if he agreed with them, Desai said he’s not seeing that at all from his players:
No, I’m not aware of a podcast. But … no, I have not. I think you saw in that game (Chicago’s Week 14 loss to the Green Bay Packers), our guys are competitors and I think they’re going to fight and claw for everything that they’ve got. It’s our job as coaches to make sure they’re in the best positions and they know their techniques and fundamentals to be able to go execute. You’ve seen that throughout the course of this year, regardless of who we’ve played on defense — and we’ve played a good number of people — and that’s part of this league, where you’ve got to be able to do that, so the next man up mentality, and we’re going to continue to do that as we move forward. The expectation is always going to be the expectation and the standard is going to be the standard. We need to play a high level of defense and we need to be able to execute for 60-plus minutes.
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Desai’s Status for Bears’ Week 15 Home Game Against Vikings Uncertain
Desai, along with the team’s other two coordinators, Chris Tabor and Bill Lazor, tested positive for COVID-19 last week. All are vaccinated, so there’s a chance one or all of them could be cleared in time for Chicago’s Monday night matchup against the Minnesota Vikings at Soldier Field.
“I feel fine. I haven’t had many symptoms so that’s been good,” Desai said on December 17, adding: “We’ve got a pretty good operation in terms of Zoom and how to manage Zoom, and we’ve game-planning that way, been meeting with the staff on our normal game-plan schedules and we’ve been meeting with the units similarly. So we’ve kind of operated as normal.”
The Bears have done some good things under Desai, who is in his first year as the team’s DC. Chicago is tied for fourth in the league in sacks (36.0) heading into Week 15, and pass rusher Robert Quinn has flourished under him. The Bears have suffered from a lack of depth on defense, but that’s not Desai’s fault so much as bad luck and questionable decisions by general manager Ryan Pace.
If Desai is unable to be cleared in time for Monday night’s game, Bears senior defensive assistant Mike Pettine will call plays for the defense.
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