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Bear Digest

Caleb Williams Can't Call It His Favorite Game But Did Love the Accuracy

The Bears quarterback rose to the top of the NFL in accuracy with his 30-for-36 effort Sunday and calls it something he's capable of repeating on a regular basis.
Gene Chamberlain|
Caleb Williams gets rid of a quick throw against the Falcons in Sunday's Bears win.
Caleb Williams gets rid of a quick throw against the Falcons in Sunday's Bears win. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

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Chicago Bears

Sunday's effort in a win over Atlanta vaulted Caleb Williams to the top of the NFL completion percentage rankings one year after his accuracy was considered a joke by some.

He's not too impressed by it all. In fact, he doesn't even consider the effort coming back from hiatus due to a hamstring injury his favorite or among his favorite games.

"Naw, I mean, I've had some pretty cool games in my career," Williams said. "It was cool getting back but I think it was just kind of another game for me."

Now who's exaggerating? Williams' 83% was the best for a game by a Bears quarterback with at least 30 attempts and set up the early 31-7 lead they had before Atlanta made a late charge.

The 30-for-36 looked even more impressive when NFL Next Gen Stats posted how he had been 24-for-24 from a clean pocket.

"Shout out to the O-line," Williams said. "That tells me shout out to the O-line. That tells me shout out to the running backs for when they had to pick up they picked up and picked up well.

"Then shout out to the wide receivers for running great routes and being decisive in their routes and allowing me to see that and give them a good ball."

Don't forget the coach. Ben Johnson and Williams had a bit of a rocky relationship to start because of Johnson's demanding style and the natural presnap mistakes that resulted when the offense first was introduced in 2025. Their relationship has become tight now, and Williams sees this as a factor in getting game plans he likes.

"It’s been fun," he said. "We’ve gotten better with some of the things that really bother him. There’s a little bit less hyper-communication, let’s say, in those situations. But it’s been awesome being able to have him, being able to have him as a teacher, as a coach and just keep growing our relationship between each other."

So the first play last week after three weeks away with an injury almost made Williams chuckle. Johnson was testing him with a bootleg pass.

"It was a keeper," Williams said, smiling. "Yeah, that's him. That's him. Like I said, if I'm out there I feel good with my legs and the injury itself. That's who he is and that's what we love about him.

"He put me on a keeper on the first play. It was a big play for us and Colston (Loveland) made a great catch."

Of course, Williams did have to take some credit after a 58.1% completions performance in all of 2025. He found things about his game he could carry over into Thursday night against New England.

"Something that I've been just preaching over and over again throughout my years with Ben so far — or year and a half with Ben — giving the guys a shot, runners ball, good footwork, and getting the ball out my hands," Williams said.

Nothing much has changed as far as his goals weekly since training camp began. The only thing different is he added more experience, went through an injury and is back.

"Just trying to stay focused on those things, and then when the shots are there, it's almost every pass play we almost have at least a shot or an alert shot in each of them," Williams said. "So when they give us the shots, let's take it. But if not, let's get the ball to our guys, get the ball in their hands and let them go."

It's worked to a league-high 72.5% completions and he'll try to keep it going Thursday against a Patriots pass defense a solid 11th in yards allowed.

Not even the injury is a problem moving into the short week.

"I didn't get hit much," Williams added. "Those couple of sacks that I probably could have just dirted the ball or probably could have just threw it out of bound or something, you know, some of them were in third-and-long situations. And so just trying to protect the ball in those situations.

"But I felt great, my body feels good. I didn't take many hits. I didn't take any devastating hits at least. And so I'm feeling good, leg feels good, everything else is kind of normal."

Except his accuracy. That's above normal by quite a bit.

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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.

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