As Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson prep for 2026, efficiency is the name of the game
INDIANAPOLIS — Not long before Caleb Williams ventured out to participate in a celebrity 3-point competition at NBA All-Star weekend in Los Angeles two weeks ago, Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson needled him with a text: a GIF full of bricked jump shots. It wasn’t Johnson’s intention for that message to serve as a trailer for his quarterback’s performance. But after Williams struggled — he made just two 3s and finished last — Johnson insists he experienced a bit of remorse.
“I felt bad,” he said Tuesday. “Spoke that into existence, didn’t I?”
In one regard, Johnson quipped, at least he had reassurance that his talented quarterback wasn’t going to develop wandering eyes for another sport. “I know what everyone’s thinking: Does Caleb have NBA aspirations?” Johnson cracked. “The answer is no. I think football is his calling.”
Johnson was reminded, though, that he was the one who urged Williams in late January to get away from football for a bit after all the energy the quarterback spent last season.
“Well,” the Bears coach said with a laugh, “now it’s time to come back.”
When Williams does return — the Bears’ offseason program launches in Lake Forest in April — Johnson and his coaches will have direct marching orders for their starting quarterback as the team works to continue its ascent. At the top of the list: a push to make Williams more efficient.
“There is no question there are some throws from last year he needs to complete or give a more catchable ball at a higher rate,” Johnson said. “And he’ll be the first one to tell you that.”
A lot will be asked of Williams as he attempts to level up. Johnson remains eager to crystallize those plans with heightened confidence in his quarterback’s buy-in to the process.
‘It’s about consistency’
Williams’ highlight reel from last season, his first under Johnson, was breathtaking. When the game was on the line and the ball was in Williams’ hands, he produced must-see football. The results were frequently spectacular, right down to the Bears’ final offensive snap of their final possession of regulation in their final playoff game, when Williams sprinted backward 26 yards behind the line of scrimmage, then launched a touchdown missile to Cole Kmet to tie the score against the Los Angeles Rams.
Having a quarterback with that combination of talent and moxie to seize such moments is energizing. It’s why Williams’ performance leap in his second season, with the Bears winning the NFC North for the first time in seven years and then a playoff game for the first time in 15, turned heads.
As one league executive put it, “What he’s really good at is the hardest (stuff). It’s impressive. What he needs to improve on is the routine (stuff).”
Indeed, the next phase of Williams’ quarterback journey will include a push to become steadier and more reliable with the simpler aspects of the game. Utilizing checkdowns. Refining his footwork. Enhancing his accuracy.
The “runner’s ball” Johnson and his coaching staff so often talk about offers a cheat code for quarterback production, consistently creating yards-after-catch opportunities. That’s an area in which Williams has already vocalized his intent to get better.
He will also push to do so inside a Johnson-designed offense that can catalyze his success.
“We as a coaching staff take a lot of pride in trying to get the primary guy open,” Johnson said. “If we are able to do that, he’s going to come through and he’s going to make that throw.
“And then if we can’t do that for him from a coaching perspective or a playcalling perspective, then he has the ability to make us right. That’s his magical talent — he can be the ultimate eraser for us. So really it’s the balance between the two.”
As encouraged and optimistic as the Bears are about Williams’ future, they also have a firm grasp of reality and continue to emphasize pushing him to understand what top-tier NFL quarterback play entails.
“Anyone who has watched the league long enough knows that, for quarterback play, it’s (about) consistency,” general manager Ryan Poles said. “Can you stack years on top of each other? We still have steps to go here.
“I don’t want to make it like he’s already (at the top). He knows he has work to do. Ben has been very clear with the vision and I know that he’s going to put the time in to get to that needs to get to that point.”
Setting the bar
Invigorated by the growth he showed in 2025 and the team success it helped spark, Williams has already gone about raising the bar for next season. Earlier this month, during a podcast visit with Maxx Crosby, he hinted at his aspiration to become the pilot of the highest scoring offense in the league, even dreaming out loud about leading one of the top scoring offenses ever. (For the record, Williams is well aware Peyton Manning’s 2013 Denver Broncos averaged a Super Bowl-era record 37.9 points per game.)
To get anywhere near that mountaintop, Johnson will challenge his entire offense to become more productive in end-of-half situations, an area where the Bears failed to meet expectations last season. According to TruMedia, the Bears finished near the bottom of the league in first downs and points scored in two-minute situations before halftime. Williams’ passer rating in those scenarios (73.4) ranked 25th.
Fixing that shouldn’t be wildly difficult given the end-of-game success the Bears delivered last season.
With Williams’ help, Johnson will also push to help spike his offense’s 51.7% conversion rate on fourth downs, which ranked 21st. And even with a terrific running game last season — the Bears’ 144.5 yards per game led the NFC — there’s a quest to better understand why the production dipped in December and January (122.6 yards per game, including the playoffs).
Then, naturally, there’s the matter of Williams’ subpar completion percentage, a 58.1 rate in 2025 that ranked 32nd. (New England’s Drake Maye was the league leader at 72.0.) Johnson hasn’t come down from his quest to push Williams’ completion percentage up to 70 — eventually. But in 2026, the aim will be to jump from 58% to 65%.
To that end, Johnson continued repeating another number this week — 40 throws. That, he emphasized, was the gap between Williams’ 2025 completion percentage and this next checkpoint. Across 17 games, had Williams found a way to turn 40 incompletions into completions — 2.4 per game — he would have finished the year at 65%.
Inside the Bears’ deep library of offensive video, it shouldn’t be difficult to identify at least 40 “do-over” moments. Plus, internally, the Bears believe Williams’ increasing knowledge of and comfort in the system will naturally spike his completion rate as he better understands how and where to put the ball.
Williams and Johnson, bonded by their shared ambition, both remain eager to see where this next stage of development can take them. To that end, the spring can’t come soon enough.
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