Caleb Williams Reveals Ben Johnson Scraps Plays He Doesn't Like, and Why it Works

Few relationships in any professional sport are more important than a quarterback and his head coach or play-caller. Many analysts compare it to a marriage because it's a relationship that requires constant communication and compromise. Many of these pairings don't work out (looking at you, Indianapolis), but for the Chicago Bears, they may have struck gold with Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson.

While speaking to the media on Wednesday afternoon, Williams was asked about how Johnson will try to push him out of his comfort zone as a quarterback, specifically when it comes to play calls. "I trust Ben with it," Williams replied. "If he calls something and I don't like it, we go up into his office. We sit down, we talk about it, he shows me clips, and if I still don't like it... he won't call it."

But it's not a one-way road. Williams went on to add, "A lot of time we'll go up into the office and talk about it. We'll watch multiple, multiple, multiple clips, and at the end of it I typically feel pretty good about it and where we want to go with the ball."

Reading between the lines, we can see that Williams and Johnson have developed the kind of mutual trust in each other that often leads to winning. It'd be easy for Johnson to simply throw his authority in Williams' face and make him run a concept he doesn't believe in. Likewise, Williams could easily retreat into a shell and stop communicating. Instead, we get a relationship that works and it's pushing the Bears closer to a Super Bowl.

Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams are cut from the same cloth

When the dust settled following the Bears' hiring of Ben Johnson as their head coach, some NFL analysts publicly doubted the wisdom of pairing a play-caller known for meticulously detailed offenses with a quarterback who made a living off of improvising. Colin Cowherd said on his The Herd with Colin Cowherd radio program that Williams can't play in structure, and that would lead inevitably to a failed head coach-quarterback pairing.

But Cowherd and other analysts completely missed the point of this duo. Johnson may have ran a different style of offense while he was in Detroit, and Williams may have preferred to run around playing backyard football, but they're cut from the same cloth. Both Johnson and Williams are obsessed with winning and going down in history as all-time greats.

Of course Johnson was not going to ask Williams to run the same kind of offense he designed for Jared Goff of the Lions, at least not right away. Johnson knew that he had to find a system that worked for his new quarterback. One that allowed him to go off-script but also would gradually and inexoribly pull him into a regimented structure. That's how winning is done in the NFL.

As for Williams, he's mature enough to take the hard coaching that Johnson dishes out and use it as fuel. He won't stand on his pride and let some hurt feelings get in the way of greatness. He wants Johnson to mold him into an elite quarterback, and we're finally seeing that take shape.

The Bottom Line

As aforementioned, Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams seem to have a strong give-and-take in their relationship. Johnson will push for Williams to trust him on a play, and Williams often will. But if the quarterback feels very strongly about a play, the head coach cans it. That's a major amount of trust for Johnson to have in Williams, and so far Williams has proven worthy of it. They seem to have a perfect understanding of what they need to do, both individually and together, to accomplish their goals.

Time will tell whether this duo can take the Chicago Bears back to the Promised Land and add a second Lombardi trophy to Halas Hall. They certainly seem the part of Super Bowl favorites after their statement primetime victory over the Seattle Seahawks in Week 8.

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