“Would you rather win by seven points or 70 points?”

That was the question Chicago Bears two-time Pro Bowl cornerback Jaylon Johnson posed to the media Tuesday at Halas Hall.

“You get in a fight, you don’t want to barely win the fight.” Johnson said. “You wanna whoop the guy in front of you, and that’s what the mentality is for us.”

That mindset is something first-year Bears coach Ben Johnson wants to establish early at Halas Hall, starting with voluntary offseason workouts.

“Really just the mindset of winning and winning right now, and winning a certain type of way, too,” Jaylon Johnson reiterated. “I think just having that dominating mentality is something that I took from the team meeting, and it starts now.”

Having a “dominating mentality” going into the season resonated with more than just Jaylon Johnson. Bears linebacker Tremaine Edmunds had a similar tone when discussing Ben Johnson’s mindset.

“When you ask people about, you know, let’s just say Detroit …” Edmunds said. “Just the mentality of, I would say what the offense wanted to do to an opponent, that was put up a lot of points.”

“This guy, he don’t just want to win, but now we want to win by a lot.” Edmunds continued. “We want to dominate.”

In three seasons under Matt Eberflus, the Bears only won one game by more than 20 points — 36-10 over the Carolina Panthers in Week 5 last season. By contrast, Johnson’s Lions won seven games by more than 20 points during that same timeframe. Although the Bears were rebuilding in 2022, Eberflus’ first season, the Lions weren’t considered Super Bowl contenders at that point either.

“I think that’s important,” Edmunds said. “That just talks about his mentality. Talks about his mindset is like, ‘We want, we going to be the best. We want to dominate, and we want to (show that) on the field, for sure.”

The way the past few seasons have gone, Bears fans will settle for wins in any fashion, but dominating wins most certainly would be welcome.