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Bear Digest

How Caleb Williams' Take-Charge Approach Sets Bears Success in Motion

The Bears offense looks much better organized than last year at this time and teammates as well as coaches are pointing at their QB.
Gene Chamberlain|
There's no question Caleb Williams is the leader of the Bears offense now after his advancement with the offense.
There's no question Caleb Williams is the leader of the Bears offense now after his advancement with the offense. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

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Chicago Bears

It's not simply Caleb Williams' arm providing better offensive play to start training camp than the team enjoyed last year at the start of camp.

His brain is doing it, as well. The ability to grasp the offense and work he put in with coaches in the offseason has elevated his understanding of the attack to the point where it seems Ben Johnson now has a coach of sorts on the field. This is what all coaches try to do with their quarterbacks and why the QB-coach relationship becomes so critical.

The best example occurred earlier at Thursday's practice. The offense got to the line and Williams saw something in the defense and the way the offense had lined up and after a few seconds disgustedly sent the offense back to huddle and restart the play process. A year ago, this happened numerous times in camp and Johnson had to holler almost every time to reboot. Now it's Williams leading the charge to get the details right.

"You could tell he spent some time with the coaches and spent some time here during the offseason," Bears tackle Darnell Wright said. "So just the way he presents himself in the huddle, the clarity he has, the tone he demands, everything's gotten better and is better."

Ben Johnson's reaction to this advancement

Johnson noted this process during a meeting they had.

"We talked the other night just about when we go into these walkthroughs in the afternoon, we're making corrections f rom the practice earlier in the day, and rather than the coaches calling it back and let's repeat and get the perfect play, it's player-led now," Johnson said. "And he's certainly leading that charge. He knows when it's not good enough. He's huddling us back up and let's get it right.

"I felt that at practice yesterday (Thursday), too. You (media) might have noticed it. We broke the huddle, things weren't quite right, and he's regrouping us, and so I think that's a huge step in the right direction. I know those guys really value what he has to say."

The leadership provided is going beyond the cerebral aspect or motivational aspect. Williams has initiated extra throwing so everyone is in sync and works on their hands.

"They're (Williams and receivers) getting extra reps when they’re done for the day and they’re continuing to work on hooking up in the passing game with all the pass catchers, and that's only going to pay dividends down the road,” Johnson said.

The positive behind all of this is the leadership being supplied. When the Bears lost DJ Moore and even center Drew Dalman from the offense, they lost a large amount of leadership that made last year's improbable comebacks possible. Someone had to replace it.

A QB leadership level boost

The quarterback is a natural on-field leadership source. However, Williams last year would have attempted to do something like this but without proper experience in this offense itself and the league, he was hard-pressed simply to run plays. He was getting yelled at by Johnson for these situations.

It's not this way with the attack now. This is literally leadership taking hold of the offense in front of the coaches.

The Bears can only hope their defense can do the same thing because it was on that side of the ball where they lost the most leadership, with safeties Kevin Byard and Jaquan Brisker and linebacker Tremaine Edmunds dispatched. The lack of communication and need for leadership is evident in how easily the Bears are beating their secondary in the passing game at each practice.

The idea on defense was to get faster and they did this with Dillon Thieneman, Coby Bryant and Devin Bush. However, the experience and system experience — not to mention just being comfortable being with a new team and teammates — is obviously lacking at this point.

They'll only get better with experience but that takes time. In the meantime, the Bears have to be happy their offense is operating so fluidly this early because they might need to carry the burden even more this year than last year until their new defenders have adjusted and applied their better speed.

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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.