Bear Digest

The damage Ben Johnson must fix to Caleb Williams when Bears begin

Ben Johnson gave out some of the details his QB will need to address once practices begin and apparently there have been steps skipped in his training they need to repeat.
Gene Chamberlain|
Ben Johnson made the rounds on radio row at the combine, here with SriusXM's Kirk Morrison (left) and Bruce Murray.
Ben Johnson made the rounds on radio row at the combine, here with SriusXM's Kirk Morrison (left) and Bruce Murray. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

The work ahead for Bears quarterback Caleb Williams has become a bit more clear and he'll be extremely busy whether it's offseason or during his break.

There's plenty to overcome after the way Williams' rookie year went. This seemed likely but coach Ben Johnson's combine media interviews confirmed it.

Before Johnson even sits down at Halas Hall for a discussion of the plans going forward, he's going to want Caleb Williams to take on a leadership role away from the field by organizing off-season work with teammates. There was some of this last year, but Williams was still coming into the league and wasn't in the full leadership role he is now.

"In the National Football League these guys better be working together when we're not in session or we're going to be falling behind," Johnson told Marc Silverman and Tom Waddle of ESPN AM-1000. "So that's going to be on Caleb to get those guys--whether that's out in California, whether it's down in Florida, wherever they want to go.

"But yeah, I mean, they've got to put in some time on their own to get that done."

Coaching will be tougher

Before they even start the coaching and learning, Williams and teammates are going to need to know something about how they're going to be coached. They're going to get the truth whether they want it or not. Last season they seemed to think there was a lack of accountability from coaches but Johnson said he doesn't operate this way.

"That's something that we're going to address," Johnson told Waddle and Silvy at the combine. "I can't help myself. I'm going to be very blunt and very honest in how my version of the truth (is), I guess you could say, going forward. And so is the coaching staff. They know the task at hand."

When Williams is back at Halas Hall, there will be an extensive film-watching session with his new coach. It might be a bit painful looking at some of those games and plays from a 5-12 year.

"I think probably one of the starting points we'll have is going over last season," Johnson told Cassie Carlson of Fox at the combine. "I do want to watch last season with him, not to revisit anything from or to linger too long from a year ago but I need to know his foundation.

"I need to know what's going on in his head, probably less schematically and more so some of the situational things that popped up, just what he was thinking, what the communication was like in the headset, just so I have a baseline to know what he's been exposed to so far. And then once we have that we're going to be to build from there."

Johnson might wonder what exactly was going on if he looks at the end of the Bears' game against his former team on Thanksgiving, when time ran out on Williams and they ate a timeout.

Getting on the same page

More than anything else, Johnson wants to get Williams to know what exactly he's thinking based on things what Lions QB Jared Goff told him.

"I learned so much from Jared," Johnson said. "I learned so much from all of those players there but one thing always resonated with me. He said where communication lacks, negativity always fills. So what that mean to me was as a play caller to the quarterback, and vice versa, there can never be any gray. "We need to just make sure we're always on the same page even if that means we're saying the same thing gain over and over and over because we just don't want to leave anything up for chance. We're all in this together."

Johnson maintained that in a way, the QB and coach are "married."

The relationship already started to become closer by phone.

Johnson told a humorous story to NFL Network's Tom Pelissero about watching the Super Bowl and being interrupted by his new QB's calls.

"He's hungry," Johnson said. "Im trying to watch the Super Bowl with my family. I made it back to Detroit just for a weekend and I'm watching and my phone just keeps buzzing. And it's Caleb, time and time again. "You know: 'what's going on here.' 'What are we thinking?' "Oh, that was a cool play.' Things like that.

"I just know this is a hungry individual, that he's ready to get this career started because he's got a chance to be pretty darned special."

It's here where a wasted rookie season comes into play thanks to the past regime.

They're going to be going over all manner of things that should have been addressed during Williams' rookie year but weren't because of the coaching staff. Basic things like cadence will be discussed.

Skipping Caleb Williams' training

"I think there probably were some steps skipped at the very beginning just in tems of building the foundation, some of the things that you have to have, from what I believe, to operate at a high level in this league, even as a rookie," Bears GM Ryan Poles told Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio and Chris Simms. "And I think that was accelerated probably a little bit.

"And with that, some of those things that you know as a league studies and figures things out, it gets exposed as you go along.

But what you saw was his talent show up countless (times) throughout the entire season especially in critical moments.

That was the most important thing for me to take from the season. And in those critical moments he elevated his game and unfortunately in a lot of those we didn't finish the game for whatever reason, but you saw him elevate and put us into position to win. And I think we're going to be able to hold onto that and that's going to show up as we move into the future."

By that he meant coaches skipped critical teaching points early that needed to be clarified, mistakes that needed to be corrected but weren't because they were on to trying to get wins.

Poles had mentioned these bad habits developed by Williams at season's end, ones that should have been corrected in training camp but weren't.

"Ben will not allow bad habits," Poles said. "It will be called out. It will be dealt with before we move on to the next thing. I have a lot of confidence in that."

He needs to because he hired the coaches who let Williams rookie year turn into a wasted season.

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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.