Skip to main content
Bear Digest

Ben Johnson Won't Budge on Goal for Caleb Williams How Realistic Is It?

The completion percentage the Bears' coach has in mind for his QB should be very familiar but the past in the NFL indicates they might be willing to accept less.
Gene Chamberlain|
Ben Johnson isn't coming off his 70% completion number this season for Caleb Williams.
Ben Johnson isn't coming off his 70% completion number this season for Caleb Williams. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

In this story:

Chicago Bears

Caleb Williams' goal for improving his completion percentage this year is a familiar one, at least.

Bears coach Ben Johnson put it out there for everyone at Tuesday's season-opening press conference. Last year it was that famous 70% number and Williams failed miserably at this even though he was a great success overall.

It is still 70% for 2026.

"It's always going to be, and that's going to be every quarterback in this league always," Johnson said. "You're going to have a darn good offense if your quarterback's completed 70% of the balls thrown."

Williams completed 58.1% last year, far worse than his rookie year of 62.5%. It wasn't bad enough to keep him from throwing for 27 touchdowns with only seven interceptions and leading seven fourth-quarter comebacks.

Realistic goal?

Is this realistic is the real question?

Last year Drake Maye was the only NFL quarterback to hit 70% as he completed 72%. Among full-time starters last year, Josh Allen got to 69.3%, but no one else reached 69%.

Accuracy was better the previous NFL season. Jared Goff reached 72.4% for Johnson in Detroit in 2024, while Tua Tagovailoa, Baker Mayfield, Joe Burrow and Geno Smith all went over 70% among starters.

But that's been the exception. In this decade, the only other starters to hit 70% were Aaron Rodgers for Green Bay (70.7%) in 2020 and Burrow in 2021 (70.4%).

Maybe mere improvement is a better goal

No doubt Johnson would take something close from Williams. The two worked extensively during the offseason, looking at film of all the incompletions last year and also on the field during minicamp and OTAs. Johnson described the film session.

"Fun," he said, to media laughter. Johnson took some blame for the incompletions thrown.

"He's having to throw the ball away, and you're like, well, shoot, 'I didn't give him a good opportunity there on that one,' and so you know, and that's why I talked about it in the springtime — us as a staff, we got to continue to do the best we can to get the primary receiver open. That makes his job a little bit easier, and then he's going to do his part and elevate his game as well. So it's a balancing act. We're all going to be better this year in a lot of ways than what we were.”

Familiarity will lead to improvement, Johnson said, but he's going to keep challenging Williams.

"I have this urge as an offensive guy to want to continue to evolve and you could say innovate and push the limits a little bit," Johnson said. "And yet at the same time in the back of my mind, what’s best for him is to continue to bank some of these reps. He’s had two offseasons and one training camp so far — and a full season, obviously — to where he’s had a lot of the similar concepts repeat for him. And now we’re at the point where he’s not thinking about the play call, he’s not thinking about the cadence, the motion and all the jigamorole before the snap. "

In offseason work this wasn't the case. It was a fluid presnap process.

"Things are starting to slow down. And so what we need to see here in camp is that anticipation, take it up a notch. I think with that the coverage recognition gets taken up another notch. I think there’s other ways we’re going to continue to challenge and push him, more of which are going to happen post-snap. Last year we talked about that pre-snap operation quite a bit. Feel a lot better about that this time of year than we did (last year). So now we’re just moving on to the next stage."

If the next stage includes 70% completions, the Bears are in business.

Sign Up For the Bears Daily Digest - OnSI’s Free Chicago Bears Newsletter

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Loading recommendations... Please wait while we load personalized content recommendations

Published
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.

Home/News