Bear Digest

How maturity is letting Caleb Williams expand his and Bears' horizons

A more mature approach emphasizing the technique aspect of his game is getting Caleb Williams where his game needs to be, and last week got the Bears a win.
Gene Chamberlain|
Caleb Williams is using his head as much as his arm and it's a sign of NFL maturity.
Caleb Williams is using his head as much as his arm and it's a sign of NFL maturity. | Lon Horwedel-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

During Caleb Williams' early growth in this Bear offense, one particular ability is leaping out at coach Ben Johnson.

It's not necessarily his arm, although that can be involved.

"I think what I’m most impressed at with him and his process is the next day; he really locks everything in from the day before," Johnson said. "We don’t have to go back and revisit it again. He’s a quick study in that regard and because of that, we can load up the game plan more each week.

"Week 3 it was a lot more than Week 1. Hopefully that’s our new normal here going forward, is not just for him but the entire offense, we can have a little bit more in the game plan to attack some of these defenses. Because he’s doing that and his comfort level is growing, we’re able to grow as an offense."

Williams' ability to avoid repeating mistakes can ensure a continually expanding attack as the Bears keep adding plays, and this all could very well be the result of the Bears QB maturing into his role only 20 games into his career.

"I think it’s the comfort level right now of taking all this information over the course of the week, which is a lot," Johnson said. "I mean, shoot, we just had a walk-through and we screwed some things up, and that’s because we just talked about it for the first time and we’re going to screw a couple things up in walk-through but we've got to get better at it in practice."

However, even after the mistakes, Johnson is sure his QB is going to handle what went wrong and learn quickly from it because he's seeing this daily.

Williams' maturity was evident Wednesday when he merely said about winning the offensive player of the week award, "cool."

Something more than "cool" would have been a reaction for a Monday.

"Every week is important and every game, every moment," Williams said. "That was a good moment we had on last Sunday and it's time to move on to the Raiders."

Williams has gone beyond simply wanting to win that week's game. He's trying to perfect technique and let the better technique help him win repeatedly. He's not going to get ahead of himself in the process of development.

"There's going to be times where you feel you played a great game and you weren't doing the right things at the right time and you end up losing the game," Williams said. "So it's just being able to do the right things at the right time consistently.

"It helps the team and that's where I'm at and trying to be at."

A year ago, Williams might have thought differently. He acknowledged this and pointed to the mistakes made in Wednesday's walk-through as an example of how his thinking changed.

"It’s probably one of the hardest days of a quarterback’s job is Wednesdays because all of the game plan that’s going in, so just being able to be positive, being able to understand that it is Wednesday and a bunch of it is new and not get too frustrated and give myself a little grace on Wednesdays to be able to understand," he said. "I’ll go back, study tonight, study tomorrow and keep studying throughout the week and then we’ll get to Sunday and be able to rep it and get out there and call those plays and be efficient and do whatever we need to do to win the game.”

He felt the frustration last year, but not necessarily because of the coaching staff's struggles then or the team's. It was more a case of frustration with his own failures.

“I would say I was a little bit more frustrated myself just because I want to be the best that I can be for my guys and this organization," he said. "So being able to go through a year of that but also understand offenses better, understand defense a little bit better and just continuing that growth process and mindset.”

The maturity is pouring out of Williams now. It hardly seems like the same QB who had body language problems last year.

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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.