Caleb Williams is Improving Perceived Weakness in 2026

The Chicago Bears are lucky to have a player like Caleb Williams on their roster. 

He has done everything the team has asked of him and more. After the inconsistency he had under Matt Eberflus, with a head-coaching change and multiple offensive coordinators throughout the year, Williams finally found consistency with Ben Johnson. 

Williams went from throwing for 3,541 passing yards, 20 touchdowns, and six interceptions as a rookie to ending last season with 3,942 passing yards, 27 touchdowns, and seven interceptions. 

In one year with Johnson, he broke the Bears' single-season passing yards record and had a major role in the fourth-quarter comebacks the team had in 2025. 

Still, there are things that Williams can be better at heading into year three in the NFL.

Quarterback coach J.T. Barrett has made it a point of emphasis to work with Williams on not going for the Superman plays every time he's on the field and taking the simple stuff when it's there. 

Williams' accuracy also took a hit last year. 

His completion percentage as a rookie was 62.5%, and it was 58.1% last season. Whether or not part of that is due to receivers having issues with drops, Williams' accuracy still needs to improve. 

Johnson revealed just before Thursday's joint practice with the Cincinnati Bengals that Williams' accuracy is trending upward, which is great to hear. 

Johnson just wants to find a happy medium between playing aggressively and improving accuracy. 

"Well, it's trending upward, and that's really what we want to see is it continued to get better," Johnson said. "I just told him this morning, I thought the last two days, even though it was abbreviated practice yesterday, they were really good. Red zone was a big emphasis for us last year. We got a few good reps of that yesterday. I think he's shown significant strides there. He's taken a lot of pride in where he's putting the ball throughout practice. You see it early on in our warm-up periods to routes on air, and it's translating over to the team periods as well. And yet, he still hasn't lost that stinger of being aggressive and trying to push the limits a little bit. And so, I think that's healthy, particularly in practice, just seeing how tight of windows we can fit these things into." 

Taking what the defense gives Williams and learning to be aggressive when warranted, with greater accuracy, could go a long way for the Bears quarterback. 

Even if he doesn't play on Sunday versus the Bengals, it's good that Williams has been improving this element of his game.