How Bears QB Caleb Williams views rookie year as he starts anew with Ben Johnson

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LAKE FOREST, Ill. — When Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams thinks about his rookie season in the NFL, he can go a number of ways.

His play caller got fired in early November. His head coach got fired before that month ended. His team lost in the most heartbreaking fashion possible — over and over again. He was sacked way too many times. He put up impressive numbers overall — especially for this franchise — but was part of a 10-game losing streak and another last-place finish.

“I put it in perspective as last year was good, needed it,” Williams told The Athletic after his first practice of training camp. “I’ve had a lot go (right) for me in the past probably six years or so. … To have a year like that was a good reset for me.”

Williams can see now what would have been nearly impossible during the toughest moments of his rookie season. Take that Thanksgiving road loss against the Detroit Lions. It was devastating, but now it can provide obvious tools for when he’s in a similar spot. And it all ultimately led to the head coach who is here to help turn it all around. If Williams’ career goes the way he hopes, it’s a responding-to-adversity success story the Bears could use.

To get there, he now needs to turn the page and become an expert in the Ben Johnson system — from the playbook to the operational command needed — all while proving that any exposed flaws from last season can become learning experiences and not red flags.

How can Williams learn from the past without dwelling on it?

How can he move forward but not forget what happened — the good and the bad?

“I think there’s so much growth that happens in chaos,” general manager Ryan Poles said.

Caleb Williams is trying to soak up as much knowledge as possible from head coach Ben Johnson. General manager Ryan Poles said that when Williams has free time, he seeks out Johnson. (Michael Reaves / Getty Images)

Poles wants to continue to see how Williams can bounce back. One sequence in the preseason win over the Buffalo Bills resonated.

“We have a holding call — which, I would love to look up the stats, when bad things or negative plays happen, how many times do we overcome (it)?” Poles said. “I didn’t feel like it was that much. And then the next play, you make up for it with the shot to Colston (Loveland).

“When things happen, or maybe it’s a bad decision, what’s the response after that? And I think that’s going to show some growth and maturity.”

Preparation and study habits will help. When Williams would show up for work at 5:45 a.m. early in camp, with the morning dew lingering on the Halas Hall practice fields, his routine began with his notebook. He started by drawing plays, then saying them out loud to simulate the call he’d give to his teammates in the huddle. The next step was to walk through it.

“Part of it’s writing it down, part of it is visual, part of it is speaking it and then part of it is going out there and doing it,” Williams said. “So I hit all the different areas. I go through the whole thing as if I got the call. I repeat it in the huddle, I say the cadence, I get up to the line and just go through the whole gymnastics of what Ben expects us to do when we’re out in the field, so that when we get out there, it’s a lot smoother.”

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Poles has noticed a “recalibration” from Williams in terms of how he spends his time.

“There’s just the time on task,” he said. “And it really wasn’t all that different last year. But he’s here all the time, and there’s a level of urgency in terms of how he wants to get better and spending time on it, which is good to see.”

Using his time efficiently means getting together with Johnson. Often. The two have weekly reviews, and we hear about their meetings, but Poles said that when Williams has free time, he uses it to find Johnson.

Veteran quarterback Case Keenum, on his eighth NFL team, took note that Williams would get to the facility before him.

“He wants it, he wants it bad,” Keenum said. “I’ve heard of young guys who just kind of show up and go, and he’s not one of those guys.”

It’s a way to leave no doubt. Being the first one in the building, being studious in meetings, and maximizing time with the head coach doesn’t guarantee touchdowns and wins. But it’s part of the evolution of a quarterback. It’s something anyone who wants to be great needs to do.

Williams used that mentality on the field, and even in his house and his car, to be ready for what Johnson would throw at him this summer.

Caleb Williams is learning the new scheme every day, but he also takes some lessons from his rookie year into this season. (Michael Reaves / Getty Images)

When Steph Curry practices, only a swish counts as a “make,” and Williams wanted to mimic that strategy during the offseason. Johnson told him to work on short throws to his left, so Williams did his best to perfect it.

“For me, it was like I want this ball to be in a certain location,” he said. “So if I didn’t hit the location, it was, redo.”

Johnson also put left-to-right throws on Williams’ to-do list, the types of throws that can be challenging for a right-handed thrower. He has spent enough time with Johnson to know that his coach cares about every yard and every detail.

“Making sure I place the ball exactly where I want to because those extra 2 yards could be a 3-yard route, and those extra 2 yards gives you 5 yards and that now you’re maybe second-and-5 and now you are ahead of the chains,” he said.

Then there was the footwork, like Williams switching to having his left foot forward when he takes a shotgun snap. Once he has that down, it’s doing everything else off that, or how to handle his feet when he takes a snap under center — something he’ll do more this year than he’s ever done — and operating play action.

“It always starts with the feet,” Johnson said last month. “It doesn’t matter what level you’re at. It always starts with the feet for a quarterback, and if you’re not aligned properly from the ground up, then you’re going to have inconsistencies with your target. That’s what we’ve been talking about.

“Specifically, for all right-handed quarterbacks, when you throw to a target that’s moving from right to left, you typically throw it behind. So you have to train yourself to make sure you’re opened up enough to throw to where he’s going to be and not where he’s at. That’s something we talked about going into the summer break and something we still harp on. You can’t get enough of that. It takes a long time to develop habits. That’s the starting point.

“He’s got a beautiful throwing motion. That was ingrained into him at a young age, and that still shows up. There’s nothing mechanically wrong. It’s just all about the alignment and getting out in front of the target.”

To keep honing that footwork, Williams compared how he practiced to someone mimicking a “Euro step” against a wall in their house, performing basketball moves against inanimate objects. Maybe when Williams went from one room to the next, he’d give it a play-action drop to do so.

The footwork and timing element that the head coach and quarterback reviewed found its way into Williams’ notebook, too.

“I haven’t gone back in a while, because I’ve written down or we’ve spoken about things that I need to improve on from last year, and it’s footwork and it’s timing,” he said. “A lot of those timing pieces, they go with the feet. Having my feet on point allows me to deliver the ball with some anticipation. It allows me to deliver the ball where I want, when I want and not be hesitant on what I’m seeing or what I am doing because my feet aren’t in the right place at the right time.”

Then there’s spitting out the plays. He had to learn a whole new playbook and the long, detailed ways Johnson wants the plays uttered in the huddle.

Well, Williams has to drive to and from the facility. What a perfect time to practice.

“It’s going over, ‘Set, hut!’ you know, and then just rolling through a cadence or so when I’m driving randomly, whenever it pops in my head,” he said.

That was a rocky part of training camp. Delay-of-game flags happened too often. Part of that is the number of details within a call, passing game coordinator Press Taylor explained, from formations to motions to “kills.” But some of that has also been by design to help prepare Williams for the real thing.

“Sometimes we can make that challenging, sometimes that’s just what we’re trying to get,” Taylor said. “We want a sense of urgency with the way we communicate in the huddle and at the line of scrimmage.”

It’s all about getting Williams ready for next Monday night on national television against the Minnesota Vikings. Training camp was a challenge. Williams had some rough days and had to manage the “two steps forward, one step back” journey. He also had some encouraging moments. It can take time, even when other quarterbacks have had it click immediately.

“I still believe there’s going to be some ups and downs,” Poles said. “Because I think it takes these quarterbacks two, three years to all of a sudden stabilize a little bit. We’ve seen guys jump into this league and spike and be really good, and then Year 2 come back down. Like, I think there’s this little bit of up and down you’ve got to go on. For us, I hope it’s a stair step that we go on and we just continue to go up.”

Things didn’t go the way anyone wanted last season. But it happened. There might not be a carryover from the plays Williams ran. There is, however, the defenses he saw, the situations he dealt with — on and off the field — and the throws he made, or didn’t. It’s a catalog, a portfolio he now has.

Chapter 1 is done, but it’s still in the book.

“You forget about the emotional ties to everything and how things happened and how things went down,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “But you want to remember all the looks you saw from the defense, all those plays you ran. Those are the things you want to remember and you want to remove the emotion from those scenarios, kind of help you learn a little bit better in that regard.

“But we can definitely move on from the emotional wear and tear of last year.”

Rarely did it seem like things were smooth or in rhythm for Williams last season. Things can only slow down from that discord.

“When you’re in survival mode, when you’re trying to figure out the speed of the game, maybe things don’t make sense,” Poles said. “So then, when you finally do get clarity and understanding of why we’re doing what we’re doing, there’s structure to it. Like even if things are blocked up a little bit better, you add more talent around you, so everything should slow down significantly.”

At times, though, things did look good. Williams had more than his fair share of moments when he looked like a No. 1 pick, a franchise quarterback for a franchise starved for one.

Big Year 2 ahead for Caleb Williams? 🔮 @Verizon pic.twitter.com/mC8Cw1hHWh

— NFL (@NFL) August 26, 2025

The four-touchdown explosion in London. The late rally to force overtime against the Vikings last November. And of course, the season-ending, game-winning drive in Lambeau Field to beat the Green Bay Packers.

Johnson has already highlighted Williams’ electric ability when a play breaks down, or how he can be at his best in the two-minute drill.

Those all matter, too, when looking in the rearview mirror.

The plays Williams will run on “Monday Night Football” will be different. The guy making the calls in his ear will be different. The guy snapping him the ball is different. It’s still football. It’s a defense he saw twice last season. And, ideally, going through the challenges of last season will make what’s next a little bit easier.

“Now, everything’s been cleaned up,” Poles said. “And I think it’s almost like taking the weight off the bat where you’re swinging free now.”

Williams posted videos over the summer in which he practiced taking a snap from under center, faking a handoff and ripping a throw. It could be a short throw, an intermediate pass, or a deep ball. It’s a staple of Johnson’s offense, and something we saw a lot in camp. It’s one of the things Williams tried to perfect, and it’s representative of Johnson’s scheme aiming to make things look the same, even if the plays are different.

Soon we’ll see how different Williams is.

“Having all those things look the same and all be different, it’s great,” Williams said. “It’s being able to push myself, being able to understand what Ben wants, and then go out there and execute.”

(Top photo: Jamie Squire / Getty Images)

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