After mastering the basics of Ben Johnson's system, the Chicago Bears' offense is weaponizing shared experiences to elevate Caleb Williams and the passing attack this season.
A majority of the Chicago Bears' offense enters Year 2 in head coach Ben Johnson's system with a foundation that wasn't there a year ago.
The coaching staff purposely tested each player's ability to retain volumes of information. Everything from terminology to motions and full play calls was tested. Now, those introductory steps have been established, allowing the team to have a faster start.
Offensive coordinator Press Taylor highlighted the benefits of continuity.
"So now, I mean, we're in second grade, essentially, we moved on from first grade," Taylor said. "We're able to kind of pick up where we left off, but move forward with it and then evolve. We've had time to think about what fit us, what fit our people, you know, who we're integrating into the the offense now and how we're going to utilize those people. So I do think there's just a natural progression for things of where we're going to go. You've kind of gone through the early simple portions of answering certain questions for players and they know it too, and we have a really smart group that they're able to kind of evolve as well with us."
A portion of that smart group is the quarterback room. Caleb Williams, Tyson Bagent and Case Keenum and quarterbacks coach J.T. Barrett all have one season in Johnson's offense. That experience results in even more productive quarterback meetings.
"That's a lot of fun there and those guys have seen so much football, and let alone they've all been together here," Taylor said. "So we all have 'Hey, remember Week 7 last year when this came up and we did this? Are we still doing that? Or do we want to do something different because Week 13 we got the same thing [and] we changed it based on whatever we want?' You know, you have shared experience to pull from and be able to communicate through, so we get going a lot faster."
Now the Bears' quarterbacks are spending less time going through formations and motions and have moved to more detailed questions.
"When do we want the [ball] snapped?," Taylor said. "How can we use our cadence in this particular play? How can we make things look even more similar? How can you use your cadence or your presnap operation to fool the defense in a way that really isn't putting us in a bind in any sort of way? So, they're all taking the next step and that's having those guys be on the same page and be moving forward together is really special for us."
The Bears finished top-10 in scoring, and Williams threw for the seventh-most yards in the regular season (3,942). That was in the first year of Johnson's offense, with everyone still learning the basics. With continuity and an established foundation, this Bears unit is primed to take the next step this season.
