Under pressure Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson left NFL viewers deeply unimpressed by his aggressive staredown in response to a question by CBS reporter Aditi Kinkhabwala.
The Bears were losing 14-9 against Las Vegas Raiders when Johnson stopped to speak to Kinkhabwala after the halftime interval was over and the third quarter was about to begin.
As she teed up her question to Johnson by saying ‘your offense has struggled’, he interrupted and said: ‘They haven’t done anything, you’re right.’
Kinkhabwala replied: ‘So, what did you tell them to get things going?’
‘That wasn’t our brand of football,’ Johnson said, ‘We’re capable of a lot more and so we’re hitting the reset button here at half time and we’re going to come back and establish our identity here in the second half.’
Kinkhabwala continued: Do you need to change what you’re doing?’
Ben Johnson gave a tense interview to Aditi Kinkhabwala during Bears vs Raiders
Giving a cold stare back at the CBS reporter, which he held for a few moments after his final comment, Johnson said: ‘I don’t know. You think so? We’re going to be just fine.’
Fans immediately picked up on Johnson’s gesture and said it gave them a bad feeling.
‘Absolutely immature by him. Aditi deserves better,’ one fan wrote on X, while another tagged Kinkhabwala in their reply and said: ‘He was completely out of line for that.’
A different viewer posted on X: ‘That Ben Johnson interview didn’t sit right with me.’
The announcers on CBS picked up on what they called a ‘menacing stare’ from Johnson and that he appeared to be ‘a little intimidating’ towards Kinkhabwala.
But whatever Johnson said to his team at the interval clearly had a huge impact. The Bears fought back to down the Raiders with a 25-24 victory.
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