Bears
Giants OLB coach Charlie Bullen roomed with Bears HC Ben Johnson when they worked together in Miami in 2012. Bullen raved about Johnson’s work ethic and intelligence as reasons why he feels Johnson will thrive as the head coach.
“No. 1, I just was really impressed with his intelligence,” Bullen said, via Adam Jahns of The Athletic. “He is naturally a very smart person. He walked on at North Carolina, so he was able to get in there on his own accord. And just his work ethic. I mean, the guy works harder than anybody I know.”
“So you apply intelligence, plus the willingness to work, and that’s what has led him to his success. The guy just really, really dedicates himself to becoming a great coach, and he did from day one and still does now.”
Lions
Lions OL Dan Skipper said that it’s going to be extremely difficult to replace C Frank Ragnow due to his extraordinary play and preparation.
“It’s a tremendous loss,” Skipper said, via ESPN. “You can’t minimize that loss. That puts a huge load on everyone else because he shows up every day. He’s the first one in the film room, knocking on the door, figuring out the game plan. All the weird looks, the weird calls that you fall into, that’s on someone else now. He’s not here, so collectively as a unit, whoever’s playing center, they’ve got to do that.”
Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown had an idea that Ragnow was retiring, but hoped that he would return to the team.
“I knew after the season that it was kind of up in the air on if he was going to come back,” St. Brown said. “I talked to him the last day when we were cleaning out lockers and I told him I’m proud of him, whatever he decides to do, we’re going to be behind him and support him. Obviously, selfishly we would’ve loved for him to come back and play 10 more seasons, but we knew that wasn’t going to happen.”
St. Brown said that Ragnow has the utmost respect of the locker room with the way that he went about his business on a daily basis.
“I have tons of respect just because of how he went about his business every day,” St. Brown said. “He came to work, was dang-near the first guy in the building every day and was going through all those injuries but never really missed any time while I was here besides maybe my rookie year when he had surgery on his toe. I remember he hurt his knee, got surgery and played the next week, so he’s a warrior, and you’d like to think he’s replaceable, but he’s probably irreplaceable.”
Packers
Packers LB Isaiah Simmons wanted to know what plans the team had for him prior to signing and commented on filling in on first-team defense as well as his experience with the Giants.
“To me, it seemed like Green Bay had the best plan, was most excited about me and liked me,” Simmons said, via Bill Huber of SI.com. “I think really what I ran into most of my career is everybody wants me to do everything as opposed to letting me get really good at one thing first. I fully believe in Haf’s plan. He’s letting me just lock in and learn a small portion first before we even think about expanding to anything else. That’s something I really appreciate because I never really had that opportunity to really just hone in on one position. That’s been huge for me. It’s something . . . that hasn’t been presented to me because my versatility, I feel like it’s a little bit of a gift and a curse, where they want you to do everything but, at the end of the day, I’m still a human.”
“I’m actually very grateful for New York for what they did,” Simmons noted. “They lit a fire under me, and I’m ready to go.”
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