New Bears coaches Al Harris, Antwaan Randle El and Eric Bieniemy bring winning mentality

New York Times

21-04-2025

LAKE FOREST, Ill. — When a sore and tired Al Harris used to fly home from road games during his playing days, he was confused by how his assistant coaches, who didn't play a snap, passed the time.
'I always saw the coaches sleep on the plane,' he said. 'I'm like, 'Y'all just got on the plane. Why you sleeping?' Now I know.'
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After a 15-year playing career, Harris has been coaching since 2012. What he quickly learned after he was done playing is coaches sometimes catch a few Z's on the plane because they have to go back to the office for a long night of watching tape while the players head home to get some rest.
In a similar vein, when he got into coaching after a nine-year NFL playing career, Antwaan Randle El realized he never knew how much work was going on behind the scenes.
'People think, OK, just because you played, you can coach,' he said. 'What I learned when I got into coaching is that 70 percent of what we do is in the office. And you don't think about that when you first come in as a coach. From a former player's standpoint, you think, all right, I can teach them how to run routes. No, you gotta set the stage, you got to prepare, you got to come up with the scripts and the splits, it's a whole nine yards. And when you realize that, that's when you start knowing it's just a different deal.'
Harris and Randle El are new to the Chicago Bears coaching staff. Their boss, Ben Johnson, is going to be the voice of the team. Offensive coordinator Declan Doyle, defensive coordinator Dennis Allen and special teams coordinator Thomas Hightower will speak every week.
But it's the position coaches like Harris, Randle El and Eric Bieniemy — all former NFL players themselves — who have the players' ears. They are the ones who spend the most time with them in meetings and on the practice field.
Between the three of them, they played in nearly 500 regular-season games. Harris was an All-Pro safety and is a member of the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame; Randle El, a college quarterback turned receiver, won a Super Bowl ring and threw one of the most famous passes in the rich history of the Pittsburgh Steelers; Bieniemy was a former running back who played in a Super Bowl and was blessed with one of the great Chris Berman nicknames of the 1990s.
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Nowadays, Harris is the Bears' new defensive backs coach (he doubles as the team's defensive passing game coordinator, not to be confused with Press Taylor, who has the same title for the offense), Randle El is coaching wide receivers and is the assistant head coach and Bieniemy, the former offensive coordinator for the Chiefs and perennial NFL head coaching candidate, is the running backs coach.
It's draft week in the NFL, which means the acquisition portion of the offseason is ending and the real work is about to begin. If you're looking for a reason why the hype around the Bears might finally be for real, you can look at the money, and the thought, the organization has invested in the coaching staff.
From coaching stalwarts like Allen, a two-time NFL head coach, offensive line coach Dan Roushar (64) and linebackers coach Richard Smith (69) to relative youngsters like Doyle (29) and quarterbacks coach J.T. Barrett (30), there's a good mix of experience on the Bears' staff. Some guys are whiz kids, others are coaching lifers. Along with Harris, Randle El and Bieniemy, Matt Giordano, Jim Dray and J.T. Barrett are all former NFL players.
'There's so many different people that I thought Ben went out and did a great job of just bringing together,' Bieniemy said last week. 'Everybody has their own experience, but everybody brings a different flavor.'
Antwaan Randle El said it's pretty cool when he gets to put on a #Bears hoodie.
Being this close to his hometown of Riverdale means being close to his family, which is something he's reveling in.
WATCH: https://t.co/x7FNCgrgRD pic.twitter.com/MbHHBaGlmm
— FOX 32 Sports (@fox32sports) April 17, 2025
That, of course, starts with Johnson, the fiery football nerd who is making a reported $13 million per year to run the show. His salary will be a small price to pay if the Bears become good and he turns Caleb Williams into a star. To help him coach, Johnson said he wasn't just going to hire his friends (or coaches with the same agency), and he lived up to that promise.
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'Whoever was in charge of the hiring, along with Ben, did a great job of acquiring a good staff,' Harris said.
The media met with most of these assistant coaches last week, with formal Q&As and roundtable meet-and-greets. Time usually crawls at Halas Hall, but this was a fun day at work, learning about what makes these guys tick.
I wanted to know if these three think it makes a difference to have an NFL playing background?
'I think it's huge, man,' said the 50-year-old Harris, a former sixth-round pick who had to get cut to find his NFL future. 'I've been blessed enough, as a player, that all my position coaches were ex-players. So the connection was really there. Not that you have to be an ex-player, because there were a lot of excellent coaches that hadn't really played in the league. But I just think the message gets there. You understand exactly what they're going through.'
Randle El, 45, agrees, but with an asterisk.
'I think it helps because we are knowledgeable about the game,' he said. 'Because you got a lot of guys who were players who coach and it doesn't take the same way. It's about your knowledge of the game, and then you got to bring the same energy to practice every day.'
Bieniemy, 55, has been coaching for a quarter-century now. He's the veteran sage of their cohort and he knows what's really important isn't what they've done in the past, but what they can do now for the Bears' players.
'I'll say this, it's always good to have guys that have had an opportunity to play,' he said. 'Me and Al Harris played together (in Philadelphia), we worked together in Kansas City, we understand our role. Our role is to be the best coach that we can be to help those young men in our room to go out and play at their very best and be the most accountable that they can be to help us to accomplish the goals that we want to accomplish. … My man El has done it at a high level as a player. On top of that, he did it at a high level as a coach because they beat us … it was the 2020 season, I like to forget that. They beat us up in that damn Super Bowl game (when Tampa Bay defeated Kansas City 31-9 in SB LV). So not only has he had an opportunity to play at the highest level, he's also had an opportunity to coach on a championship team.'
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Speaking of Randle El, he caught 370 passes for 4,467 yards and 15 TDs in his time with Pittsburgh and Washington. He carried with him the knowledge of a quarterback after being a four-year starter at Indiana and a prep star at south suburban Thornton High. (He's also the only coach on the staff who beat Kevin Garnett in a basketball state playoff game.) All that has helped him as a coach, and he should be a boon for the receivers and for Williams. The same goes for Bieniemy, who will be tasked with coaching up the running backs for what should be a run-heavy offense under Johnson. It's going to take a village to fix the Bears.
As for Harris, he still rocks the long dreadlocks from his playing days. You can bet the defensive backs can relate to him and every day he'll be where he belongs in the defensive backfield.
'This is what I'm supposed to be doing, you know what I mean?' Harris said. 'I've been in this game, playing and coaching, since I was 7 years old and I'm 50 now. The only job I've ever had has been either playing in the NFL or coaching in the NFL, so I truly believe this is where I'm supposed to be. This is where my mark is supposed to be made.'
(Photo of Antwaan Randle El: Jon Greenberg / The Athletic)