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Bear Digest

Caleb Williams Might Have Just Had His Best Practice and What It Means

An incredibly sharp Bears passing attack hit the defense hard Thursday for intermediate and deep gains, which could indicate something big about their QB.
Gene Chamberlain|
Caleb Williams and members of the offense warm up during training camp.
Caleb Williams and members of the offense warm up during training camp. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

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Chicago Bears

Caleb Williams on Thursday recorded what might have been his most impressive practice to date, coming off a lighter but also successful opening practice.

The ball landed where receivers could catch it in stride. Rarely did it go high or low of the mark, even 15 or 20 yards downfield. He had one pass sail over Colston Loveland's head but it was a long throw after defensive penalty when he was trying to take a shot. Williams found all of his main targets for gains of 20 yards or more in the practice, and Luther Burden and Rome Odunze had a couple of those each during more than 1 1/2 hours of work and four first-team 11-on-11 opportunities.

The pièce de resistance, if you will, was a bomb to Kalif Raymond behind Coby Bryant and Tyrique Stevenson for a touchdown, followed by a second long completion to Raymond but this over the middle and cutting through the coverage.

It's apparent Williams has graduated.

“So now, I mean, we’re in second grade, essentially," offensive coordinator Press Taylor said Thursday. "We moved on from first grade.”

By that, Taylor referred to Williams' knowledge of the offense and how Ben Johnson has decided to push things a bit further this year. When the Bears had Mitchell Trubisky at quarterback, after one year in the offense Matt Nagy declared his quarterback was moving from the 100 level course to 200. It never really happened as Trubisky struggled and was complaining they should turn off the television sets at Halas Hall by year's end. But Williams already shows in two practices that he has taken great strides since the end of last year with accuracy.

“Kind of like what we were just talking about; you've seen growth every day," Taylor said. "And it comes out — we were able to do a little bit more in the offseason just in the way we operated, the tempo we operated with. If we had 15 plays and a 10-minute walkthrough, we were probably getting nine plays by the time we had to repeat everything. Now, I think yesterday (Day 1) we got to 13. We didn't quite get to 15 yet, but we got to 13, and we were able to move a little bit quicker.

"And that's not just necessarily Caleb, but that's everybody in the offense, the way we operate, the way we communicate, the urgency we have, and that's a big thing in this building. You just feel urgency every single day.”

Why it's looking better

Johnson described what has happened. He didn't just bring Williams back with everything the same. He tweaked and upgraded so the offense could move forward and continue to be unpredictable, yet didn't do it to the point where they threw away the advantage of having their quarterback know the system well.

"He and I were just talking yesterday about that," Johnson said. "I have this urge as an offensive guy to want to continue to evolve and innovate and push the limits a little bit. 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.

"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 rigmarole before the snap. Things are starting to slow down. 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. I 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.”

Even better

Easily the most impressive thing Williams has shown in two practices is that he can put the ball in the right spot and complete passes from within the pocket in time.

Last year at this time, he balked, pulled down throws, rolled out repeatedly, tried to make things on his own much of the time instead of in rhythm. So far, rhythm has replaced off-platform.

It would be easy to look at this and say it's because he's not really facing a pass and this is true. Not only have the Bears not applied much pressure, but these are non-padded practices so he knows he's not getting hit, anyway. Yet, a year ago at this time in similar circumstances the ball was not coming out in time and definitely wasn't placed where it needed to be. In fact, that didn't happen all year long except on several big plays.

How much of this progress as an anticipatory pocket passer is permanent and how much results only from the lack of a pass rush in non-padded practice won't be completely obvious until the Bears have pads on in a few days, or even in preseason games and joint practices.

The signs of progress have been there, nonetheless, and practices like this could become common moving forward as the passing attack sharpens even more.

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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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