Bears quarterback Caleb Williams and coach Ben Johnson are heading into their second NFL season together. Here is what is on Williams' 2026 checklist.
Expectations for Caleb Williams, Ben Johnson and the Chicago Bears should be raised after clinching the NFC North and winning 11 games last season.
With Johnson as Williams' head coach and play caller, the two helped Chicago become one of the NFL's top offenses. That occurred despite the persistent growing pains throughout the offseason, training camp and the regular season.
Johnson's offense utilizes different cadences, a variety of motions and precise timing to function. That was all new to Williams last season, but he's now had two offseasons, training camp and a full season to process all the information and bank similar concepts.
At times, Johnson considers further evolving his scheme and pushing the limits since Williams is no longer thinking about those particular attributes of the offense and everything that happens before the snap, but he also has to weigh balancing what's best for his 24-year-old quarterback.
"Things are starting to slow down," Johnson said. "And 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 — 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."
One of the main areas of improvement for Williams is raising his 58.1 completion percentage from last season. Johnson believes Williams has taken the correct fundamental steps over the spring and summer, assessing his body position, feet alignment and accuracy, to address that part of his game.
"And then when you get into the bullets flying and we got full speed reps here ..., I think that's where the ability to see where I should go with the football, the process a little bit faster, that's what I'm hopeful for is that we see another step in terms of the processing speed, because we do have these banked reps at this point," Johnson said.
For anyone wondering about 70% completion percentage still being the goal heading into the 2026 season, Johnson reiterated, that's "always going to be the goal."
It's high bar to set, but Johnson also understands he has a quarterback that possesses elite traits, making another a possibility.
"There's really nothing I don't think that he can't do," Johnson said. "It's just elite arm talent, playmaking ability, escapability. You know, he has his legs that he can hurt a defense with. I mean, there's just so many layers to who he is as a player. I think that word consistency comes up over the course of a 60 minute game or more, if we need it to where we're playing high level quarterback play throughout that game. I mean, you see flashes of it, and yet we're trying to tap into that where we're just consistently delivering the ball where it needs to go, giving it to our guys around us and then we all know that he has that ability to put on that Superman Cape, when the time calls for it."
