Armed with a playoff victory and a proven bond with Ben Johnson, Caleb Williams enters his second year in the system, trusting his instincts and elite playmakers.
Caleb Williams has no shortage of confidence.
That's evident in how the Chicago Bears' quarterback carries himself and plays on the football field. The Madden cover athlete is going into his third NFL season and his second year in head coach Ben Johnson's offense.
After a season's worth of practices, wins and losses, the 24-year-old quarterback has proof of concept how his head coach operates. Unlike the start of last season, Williams isn't second-guessing his head coach.
"Obviously getting a new coach, you’re wondering how you’re going to gel on game day, how things are going to work out," Williams said. "He was obviously probably wondering the same thing going into Week 1. I would say that’s the biggest thing, the confidence in myself and the playbook and the things that I know and recognizing defenses and checking the ball down, getting the ball into my guys’ hands, delivering a good ball. I think that’s where I’ve grown and where we’ve grown."
Williams threw for 3,942 yards, 27 touchdowns and seven interceptions in his first season with Johnson as his play caller. He led the Bears to an NFC North title and a playoff victory over the Green Bay Packers in the wild-card round.
The Bears had a successful season in 2025, but Johnson not only wants to leave last year in the past, but he also is aware of what people outside of Halas Hall think about his team.
"Well, we're the No. 1 regression candidate so ... I think we've got plenty of motivation ourselves," Johnson said in late July. "We talked about Caleb in the past. He's used to handling a lot of attention, so I'm not worried about that."
That's one of Williams' strengths, his ability to handle pressure. It's one of the reasons why Williams came up clutch and led his team to seven fourth-quarter comebacks (including the playoffs) last season.
But what is he most certain about with himself?
"Just overall myself," Williams said. "Just knowing I can put the ball anywhere, knowing I’ve got special guys out there on the edges, wide receiver, they’re special talent and knowing I have an ultimate coach and play-caller that supports me and supports us and calls plays to the best of his ability but also calls plays to what we do best. So when you have that and you have that tandem, you’ve just got to go out there and execute and deliver a good ball and catch the rock and go be explosive.”
Williams understands what he must do for the Bears' offense to operate effectively -- trust his coach and deliver the ball to his playmakers. If the third-year quarterback does that, the noise from critics will slowly silence. Even then, there will always be people who doubt Williams. And the Bears' quarterback keeps receipts on social media.
Rising expectations bring outside noise, but the only standard that matters is the one set in their own building.
"Expectations; I think they start from internal for us," Williams said. "We don't worry about the external expectations or what people think or our schedule and all these different things. We worry about what's inside the building and what we have going on and focusing on that. And then controlling our expectations, it's just a standard that we set for ourselves when we're on a practice field, the practice is harder than the games. That's what we pride ourselves on; completions and the defense stopping the ball. We have these standards that we go by and live by. We just have to keep doing that throughout the year and throughout the season and practice and then translate to the game."
