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Caleb Williams Details Exactly Where and How He Progressed at Bears Camp

While it may have seemed in last week's game at Cincinnati that the Bears QB could have problems, his coach doesn't see it this way, and the two described why.
Gene Chamberlain|
Caleb Williams didn't have his best game against Cincinnati but apparently bounced back well in practice against Tennessee.
Caleb Williams didn't have his best game against Cincinnati but apparently bounced back well in practice against Tennessee. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

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Chicago Bears

The overreaction to Caleb Williams' short and unimpressive performance against Cincinnati failed to take down Ben Johnson's view of his quarterback, even if he didn't like the target choice on one play that day.

Prior to the Bears' practice at Nashville Thursday, Johnson spelled out the improvements his QB has made. The pass receivers, the pass rush, the run defense, forget it. The best part of the team's play is the Iceman.

"I think that’s been probably the best thing so far this camp, just the anticipation, the timing, the understanding of where we want to put the football," Johnson. "He is not afraid to fit it into tight windows. He trusts his pass catchers.

"But a year ago I think a lot of the things we’re foreign to him and now you can tell he has some banked reps and he’s able to anticipate where he wants to go with the football."

All of this could mean plenty for wide receiver Rome Odunze and tight ends Colston Loveland and Cole Kmet. They're the receivers most likely to be involved in contested catches based on past operation of this offense. If Williams isn't as afraid now to put it at risk, they'll need to come down with it.

Williams has the fewest interceptions for any quarterback over their first 1,000 pass attempts in NFL history. Part of this has been a reluctance to put the ball into risky situations. He has only a 1.2% interception rate for two seasons, which doesn't include his five postseason interceptions last year.

Johnson sees this more as a constant situation rather than a plateau Williams has reached.

It's fluid not static

"This is a continual process that we started well over a year ago now and we’re just continuing to build on things that we see that he’s doing well and things that we feel he can get better at," Johnson said. "I alluded to it a couple days ago, we’re honing in this week in particular on some of his situational work and coverage recognition.

"We’ll get through this block and sit down and reassess where we’re at and what we need to focus on going forward."

If Williams is confident enough to push passes into the tighter areas, it's just because he knows where players will be both on offense and defense now after a year of work. He gave insight into what it is he did to get better at knowing the system, and what it's like for him now.

"I'm more or less getting up there and trying to figure out what I can fix to make sure this play works or make sure this drive works," Williams told reporters after Thursday's practice. "And so there's times where we may have the coverage and something happens, and it's being able to adjust and find a checkdown or scramble and be positive in those ways."

How improvement occurred and what it looks like

He called it a matter of getting more reps, but he did more than just repeat plays to get this all down.

"I mean, I write the same, like it's a common concept that everybody runs in the NFL, and I write it down consistently," Williams said. "I write down what we like versus what we don't like it versus every time that the play is put in and installed.

"And so it's just, I'm getting constant mental reps of when I see a coverage or when I see this (defensive tendency), it's, OK, we don't like it versus this (play), now let's get onto the backside of the concept or another route that we that we do like in that concept," he said. Then he is able to adjust at the line.

It's development of a quarterback at a high level, something the Bears have never been able to accomplish in the past. Johnson came in saying he'd achieve this and has in less than two seasons.

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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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