Bear Digest

Caleb Williams' numbers Ben Johnson must bolster for Bears to succeed

Key statistical areas Caleb Williams struggled in as a rookie must be elevated in his second season under new coach Ben Johnson if the Bears up to improve on five wins.

Gene Chamberlain

There are several areas Caleb Williams must improve and key among them is the times he affects his own sack totals.
There are several areas Caleb Williams must improve and key among them is the times he affects his own sack totals. / Mike Dinovo-Imagn Images
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There's a good reason Ben Johnson said he'd be gutting the Bears on offense and building around quarterback Caleb Williams.

A great deal of what happened last season with Williams didn't work. A disaster might have been the best way to put it, after they were last in the league in yardage for the first time since 2024 but failed to finish higher than 20th on offense for the eighth straight year.

It was no way to bring in a highly touted rookie passer and it resulted in some discouraging numbers in several ways from the No. 1 overall draft pick.

Considering Johnson's Lions offenses ranked fourth, third and second the last three years respectively after they were 20th and 22nd in the previous tewo years to his promotion to play caller, there's a good chance Johnson succeeds at elevating Williams.

"This offense will be calibrated with him in mind," Johnson said. "We're going to build this thing. This is not simply a dropping of a previous playbook down on the table and starting there. Nope We're ripping this thing down to the studs, and we're going to build it out with him first and foremost, and then with the pieces around him next."

There are numerous statistics Williams needs to bolster for 2025 and the Johnson offense won't work unless Williams achieves this.

Here are the five numbers Williams needs to improve the most for 2025.

6.3

Yards per attempt has long been a key passing stat indicating success. It accounts for so much because the ball is moving in bigger chunks. Improving this number for Williams will need to be right up there with completion percentage for 2025, even more important. A 6.3 was 28th among passers who started half their team's games last year. It's well below the league average of 7.1. Only Bryce Young and Daniel Jones were worse among QBs who started at least half their team's games.

It's not a number that means Williams is throwing too short, or becoming a "checkdown Charlie," although that can happen to QBs. In Williams' case, his intended air yardage is too high to show this. His number was low because of his inaccurate downfield throws and also because of the high number of passes the team had him throw behind or at the line of scrimmage that were well covered. He still had an elevate yards after catch total even after targets were so well blanketed.

62.5

This was Williams' completion percentage. It was 33rd among NFL passers last year, which obviously isn't good when there are 32 teams. Williams' number was so poor partly because he tended to throw deeper, as his third-place finish for intended air yards indicates (4,443). However, he also was inaccurate far too often, especially in the middle portion of the schedule and at the very beginning. Pro Football Focus has a complicated metric measuring this, the adjusted completion percentage. It measures how accurate a quarterback's throws are by accounting for incompletions caused by drops, batted passes and game-specific decisions, like spikes and throwaways. Williams ranked 46th in the league at this at 73.4%.

It sounds terrible but he had company. He was tied with Will Levis, better than Matthew Stafford (73.2%) and just behind Brock Purdy (74.1%) and Josh Allen (74.2%). He was far better than Trevor Lawrence (64th), Anthony Richardson (73rd), Michael Penix (61st) and Bryce Young (55th). A QB completion percentage needs to be 65% or higher these days to make an impact, unless he's hitting a lot of downfield throws. The league average was 65.3% last year.

68

The sacks total has to come down. It's not all on his offensive line. Williams did cause plenty of those sacks. He had 51 sacks on plays when he had the ball four seconds or longer. Patton Analytics calculated Williams was responsible for 45% of his own sack total.

While these are not exact figures, they tend to point in the same direction. Williams was a QB trying to make a play by holding it longer or by throwing while under extreme pressure. His "Superman" act is fine on occasion, but he's wearing the cape too many times.

One other cause of too many sacks is poorly designed plays. This much should change with Johnson in charge of their offense.

87.8

Williams' passing efficiency rating needs to rise. This isn't QBR, which is a contrived metric created by ESPN that means nothing to most people. Matt Eberflus always as referring to QBR hen he actually meant passer rating. Passer rating is a long-utilized standard calculation throughout the league. Williams was not bad for a rookie in this regard.

Throwing touchdown passes helps and the fact he was tied for 15th at this definite was a plus. Throwing fewer interceptions helps this number and he already was ridiculously successful at this with just six. Only five passers who started more than half their team's games were better and Justin Herbert was the only QB with at least 500 attempts who had fewer than Williams.

It's a number that should increase in Year 2.

It went up 12 points for Justin Fields in Year 2 and 17.9 points for Mitchell Trubisky in Year 2, although in both cases it was so low in their rookie years that it would have been hard for them not to improve it.

Bryce Young raised his 8.5 points in Year 2, C.J. Stroud's was already abnormally high and tanked by 13.8 points. And his offensive coordinator got fired. Williams has room to improve as something in the high 90s is desired, and the really effective passers get to the 100s with the combination of yards per pass, completion percentage, touchdowns and lack of interceptions.

67.0

This is also a passer rating, but it's a situational statistic. It's Williams' passer rating when games are tied.

Games are obviously tied when they're scoreless and that is supported by his passer rating in first quarters. It was a paltry 78.8, his worst for any quarter.

He needs to be better prepared for what he's going to face and executing better early in games when they are competitive.

Coaching definitely can help here.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher 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.