Bear Digest

Bears see Caleb Williams' progress even if he is watching games

Whether the Bears starter plays this week in preseason game No. 2 or not, coaches believe he's advancing and both regular and joint practices are telling them this.
Gene Chamberlain|
Caleb Williams goes through stretching at Halas Hall, where he has been getting his real work done in preseason.
Caleb Williams goes through stretching at Halas Hall, where he has been getting his real work done in preseason. | Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

There is method to what seems like madness from coach Ben Johnson when he shields Bears quarterback Caleb Williams by making him watch preseason games.

It goes beyond avoiding a needless preseason game injury.

Williams got his game-oriented work in during the week in practice against the Miami Dolphins, and they have another practice like this Friday against Buffalo prior to Sunday night's preseason game No. 2.

"The joint practice, I think he did a good job of being competitive," Bears offensive coordinator Declan Doyle said. "He's continuing to evolve as a processor and things like that.

"Dealing with a pretty large variety of defense, they're kind of stemmed from that Baltimore tree, and that's one that provides a lot of different looks, different than what he gets from our defense all the time. So, I thought that was really good to see him go out and process that."

There has been an alteration over the first two weeks of training camp and it's progressing to game preparation rather than offensive installment and practice reps, even if Williams isn't going to play in the game. When he practices against the team they're facing in the game, it's the same thing to coaches.

"The specific things, really, we're getting into now where we're preparing for specific components," Doyle said. "Just like last week when Miami comes to town and you're starting to prepare for that type of defense, a lot of the improvements happen within the meeting room and things like that.

"(Williams') process of, 'How am I going to study this team? How am I going about executing the game plan that we're going to put together for a specific team?' Buffalo, totally different style of defense coming in. Really, that's the biggest thing that we're looking for, as a staff, is just him continuing to develop and handle that classroom work."

When Doyle says this, it sounds almost as if they're planning to hold Williams out of another preseason game. This hasn't been announced yet, though.

The Lions routinely avoided playing Jared Goff in preseason. They did use him in one preseason game during his first preseason under Johnson as offensive coordinator in 2022, and he threw four passes. This was the very first Lions preseason game under Johnson and it was against Atlanta.

Goff never played in another one, although there were preseason games when other Lions offensive starters played.

The difference here is the experience Goff had, as a seventh-year player in Johnson's first season as coordinator.

Williams is only a second-year quarterback, and in his second NFL offense. Logic says maybe the Bears should get him and the rebuilt offensive line some game reps simply for the sake of adding more reps.

After all, it is the repeating of plays that they are saying they believe will eventually elevate Williams within the offense. So how can game reps hurt?

However, coaches don't see it the same way as fans and those reps can come in various forms.

"Reps, reps, reps, reps," Doyle said. "We have done a really good job of utilizing a lot of walk-through time, where, we're simulating, in the afternoon, we're going through 45 reps plus blitz pickup, which might be 24 more reps, but the quarterback having to go through calling the play, come up to then line of scrimmage and go through his operation."

Doyle repeated what Johnson has often said and that the only way to get better is do it over and over.

"My answer to that is that there are no shortcuts," Doyle said. "There's no way to make it easy.

"You have to really go through that process, and that's what we've been going through, since we started really, when we got here, just getting him used to his process; he's coming to line, accelerating that, and then getting faster and faster at it so that it becomes second nature."

The work, for Williams, last week included a throwing session on game day with some of his top targets, like Rome Odunze and DJ Moore. Then he and those participating in the pregame workout watched the game from the sidelines.

"Pregame, we went out with the guys that didn't play in the game and went through kind of an extensive workout," Doyle said "And I thought that was really good, just because a lot of times those guys go to the game and they're kind of just hanging out, but they were able to get a lot of quality work in, a lot of quality reps, just working through that mental side of the game as wel,l as the physical part, with some of the route detail and things that were coaching up. But, I've seen him just continue to progress."

At least the coaches have, and so have those who got to see some of Williams in practices did, as well.

Until it's in an actual preseason game, few others will be able to determine this.

Then again, it doesn't really matter to the Bears if someone else can determine progress until everything is live on Sept. 8

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.