Chicago Bears 2026 OTAs: Caleb Williams, Ben Johnson 'Meet Every Day'

During the early stages of Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson's relationship, the Chicago Bears' quarterback didn't even know if his coach liked him. 

Johnson is tough, someone who will consistently express his frustrations if the details of a practice, a play or body language aren't up to standard. That's something Williams and his teammates were looking for in a coach after the team finished 5-12 in 2024. 

Fast forward to today, and now the third-year quarterback and second-year head coach are meeting every day. 

"We go up and I meet in his office and we hang out and laugh, joke," Williams said on New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce. "We talk about ball and things like that. ..."

When Williams enters Johnson's office, he sees into his coaches' offensive mind with a board that his filled with different drawings and his desk filled with papers.

Travis Kelce knows what that is like, especially with Andy Reid as his coach. The older coaches still uses index cards, but as Williams was describing Johnson's offensive process, he said, "madness." 

Williams repeated the word, twice. 

The discussions Williams has with his coach of course include plays and how the offense can improve those plays. 

"We're always trying to find more explosives," Williams said, "I know probably, Andy does the same thing, trying to always find more explosives, like even in the base plays, like how can we fix maybe one route that changes the whole thing? But it becomes maybe a base play for us, but it's super explosive, super efficient, and that's always what Ben is looking for."

Most times Johnson has an all-business attitude, but after the Bears' 24-15 win over the Philadelphia Eagles on Black Friday last season, he stripped away his emotions, taking off his shirt before leading the "Good, Better, Best" victory chant. 

"He brought a lot of juice to us," Williams told the Kelce brothers. "I think this was us going 9-3 I think or something like that, and it was a good moment being able to obviously, you know, beat such a really good tam and organization and things like that. So it was a fun moment."

Johnson wears a lot of hats for the Bears' organization, coach, offensive play caller, leader, etc., but at his core, he is someone who holds his players to the highest of standards. 

So even though Williams was just named the cover athlete for Madden NFL 27 and has been receiving national recognition for his play in 2025, Johnson won't let all of that get to his quarterback's head. 

"I think he is wired the right way," Johnson said. "He wants to be great, and when that is the case you can coach him hard. You know we're showing clips in front of the offensive unit today and there are some things from yesterday's practice that in my opinion he can get better at. So you coach him just like you coach all of the rest of the guys, and he wants that. He wants to be coached the same, so we meet every single day. That process has gone really, really well. We're seeing the game through the same lens, which I think is critical for a play caller and quarterback to be able to do. I'm really, really proud about how he has gone about this offseason so far."