Ben Johnson has told anyone within earshot that the goal for the Ben Johnson Bears offense is to be the highest-scoring offense the NFL has ever had. Not top five. Ever. And when that made the rounds this morning, a former Super Bowl-winning offensive lineman now working the studio desk did not roll his eyes at it. He loved it.

I get why. Coaches spend August saying nothing on purpose. Process, one day at a time, we're just trying to get better, the whole numbing catechism. Johnson skipped it and put a number on his own back instead, which tells you something about the room he thinks he's building. Guys who have been in a locker room will tell you players can smell a hedge from the back of the meeting hall.

Now, the bar. The highest-scoring offense in league history is the 2013 Denver Broncos at 606 points, and nobody has come near it since. The 2007 Patriots put up 589 and that year has its own zip code in NFL memory. So the stated goal isn't ambitious, it's absurd, and absurd is a legitimate coaching choice. Aim at 606, miss by 80, and you've still had one of the best seasons of the decade.

The credential behind the talk is what makes it more than noise. Johnson's Detroit offenses were genuinely the best-scoring show in football before he took the Chicago job, so this is a man quoting his own résumé, not his imagination. Now it's Caleb Williams running it, in a building where Johnson has already had a camp to install his language and his tempo. That's the part I'll actually be watching: not the goal, the fluency.

checked the almanac: those 606-point Broncos got taken apart 43 to 8 in the Super Bowl. history keeps a straight face about that one.

So the honest counterpoint is simple. August declarations have never blocked a single edge rusher. Chicago has to protect the quarterback and finish drives inside the 20, and if either of those goes sideways the record talk becomes a clip people replay unkindly. What comes next is the only tell that matters: how much of this offense looks automatic once the games count.

I'd rather have a coach who says the loud thing and then gets measured against it. Most of them never give you that chance.