The Chicago Bears and quarterback Caleb Williams developed right before our eyes during head coach Ben Johnson's first season at the helm in 2025, and the best is likely yet to come.
Johnson brought with him to Chicago an incredibly complex and precise offense, then immediately threw every one of his players into the deep end and forced them to sink or swim.
As Ben Solak of ESPN noted on Wednesday, August 19, the offense sometimes appeared as though it was drowning prior to the team's bye in Week 5. But after that, things began to come together.
Cameron Vitale of FOX Sports, who witnessed Bears training camp last summer and paid close attention in 2026 as well, described last week the difference in Williams' grasp of the offense as "night and day" from Year 1 to Year 2 in Johnson's system.
However, the one area where Williams must still improve drastically heading into his third NFL campaign is his accuracy. Johnson has acknowledged as much after Williams' completion percentage dropped from 62.5 percent in his rookie season to 58.1 percent last year.
“It’s trending upward and that’s really what we want to see is it continue to get better,” Johnson said.
Coach Johnson is live with the media https://t.co/s8ZnA4SR16
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) August 20, 2026
"He’s taking a lot of pride on where he’s putting the ball throughout practice," Johnson continued. "And yet he still hasn’t lost that stinger of being aggressive and trying to push the limits a little bit. I think that’s healthy, particularly in practice, just seeing how tight of windows we can fit these things into. There’s a good delicate balance."
Ben Johnson more concerned with Caleb Williams making explosive plays than leading NFL in completion percentage
Solak noted as part of a deep dive into Johnson's offense and the philosophy behind it on Wednesday that the Bears head coach is considerably less concerned with efficiency and more interested in explosive plays, which goes for both the pass and run games.
In that context, Johnson's emphasis on increasing Williams' accuracy is about getting the football to players like tight end Colston Loveland and wide receivers Rome Odunze and Luther Burden III in space and stride so that they can use the offensive scheme to rip off chunk gains.
"We want to give these pass catchers ... opportunities to run after the catch," Johnson said recently. "So we're being very critical on where we're putting that football with them."
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