Williams, Johnson pairing in Chicago could produce dream results if expectations are met

The expectations surrounding former USC star quarterback Caleb Williams have been monumental since his college days.

The 23-year-old was the presumptive top pick in the 2024 NFL Draft before a snap of football was played in the 2023-24 season, and his 6.74 prospect grade on NFL.com's draft tracker was the fifth highest of any QB over the past seven years.

"The only thing you really don't like, just strictly on the player, is the height," an AFC executive said, via NFL.com.

"[You watch] the tape – he's got the most ‘wow' plays of any quarterback in the draft," an anonymous NFC executive said leading up to the draft.

As everyone expected, the Chicago Bears made Williams the first selection at the draft and handed him the reins of the offence from the first snap of training camp.

But the first-year results were not up to the billing – not for a quarterback who threw for 93 touchdowns and 10,082 yards in 37 games at Oklahoma and USC and took home the 2022 Heisman Trophy as college football's best player.

Williams started all 17 games for the Bears as a rookie and threw for 3,541 yards with 20 touchdowns and just six interceptions. He led the team to only five wins though, thanks in large part due to his indecision with the football in his hands. Williams took 68 sacks last year, 16 more than any other QB, and tied for third most in a single season in NFL history.

The Bears have assembled an offensive roster loaded with talent entering the season - proven pass-catching veterans in D.J. Moore and Cole Kmet, as well as promising young receivers in last year's ninth-overall pick, Rome Odunze, and this year's 10th overall pick, tight end Colston Loveland.

The biggest cause for promise though is the change at the top, with former Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson hired in January as the Bears' new head coach.

What has the Ben Johnson - Caleb Williams relationship looked like so far?

Johnson, 39, entered the coaching ranks in the NFL at a young age, when he was named an offensive assistant with the Miami Dolphins in 2012 at just 26 years old. He ascended through the ranks at Miami before joining the Detroit Lions in 2019 as an offensive quality control coach before taking the role of offensive coordinator in 2022.

In his three years leading Detroit's offence, the team finished in the top five in yardage gained and scoring all three years. The Lions also won their first playoff game since 1991 two years ago, with Johnson helping lead the way.

Now Chicago - and Johnson - are expecting big things out of Williams in his second year in the league.

"It's clear that modern football in the NFL is quarterback driven," Johnson said at his introductory press conference. "There's no doubt Caleb played a large component into my decision. He is a phenomenal talent that had, as many quarterbacks do, an up and down rookie year.

“I see my role as a supporter of him. This offence will be calibrated around him. We're going to build this thing. This is not simply a dropping of a previous playbook down on the table and starting there. Nope, we're ripping this thing down to the studs, and we're going to build it out with him first and foremost, and then with the pieces around him next. I really look forward to challenging him and pushing him to continue to grow and develop."

Johnson believes that a relationship with the offensive coordinator and coaching staff is perhaps the most important component to success. He isn't trying to rush that with Williams.

"We're going to have to spend a lot of time together. The play caller and the quarterback have to be integrated. The quarterback needs to be able to see the game through the play caller's eyes. In my opinion, that's the only way it works,” Johnson said. “And so we're going to spend a lot of time together this springtime [and] certainly during training camp, and we'll be able to see how much headway we can make. But there's already things that I've talked to him about that I've noticed in his game that I want to address, and I want to go ahead and take a look at early and often here."

The early returns in preseason camp have been mixed

So far in camp, the duo has worked together extensively to build the offence from the ground up. And the results have been mixed, per reports.

“This has been the plan from the get-go is that we don’t know yet who we are going to be on offence — zone scheme, gap scheme, up front in terms of the running game, play-action pass,” Johnson said earlier in August, per The Athletic's Jon Greenberg.

“Are we going to be more from the shotgun, under centre? By design, we gave a lot so we could determine what we want to do and which direction we want to go. We are at the point now where we will start honing in on some of those things. As far as they know, everything we have installed from this point is still alive and well.”

With a slower rollout the plan for the offence in the preseason, even Johnson acknowledged that the team was not moving at the pace he was hoping when speaking to reporters early in August.

“Sloppier than we were hoping we would be at this point,” Johnson said per The Athletic's Kevin Fishbain on Aug. 3. The team especially struggled with delay of game penalties, which Johnson was not happy with.

“It’s something we’re going to have to address for sure," he said. “It showed up more today than it has in practice. This was more like a real game, and if it continues like that, we’re not going to win many games.”

The struggles continued into Chicago's preseason opener against the Miami Dolphins – a game in which Williams did not play. The team was flagged for two illegal-shift penalties and one illegal formation flag, which has been a theme throughout training camp.

"Any time that’s happening, that’s unacceptable,” offensive coordinator Declan Doyle said. “That’s not our standard. Whoever – if they’re wearing a Bears uniform, that can’t happen. … There are elements of that that are, you know, it’s preseason. But that’s an excuse. That has to get right, and that’s something that we need to address right now.”

Caleb Williams turns a corner and impresses in first action in Ben Johnson's offence

The first time Williams stepped on the field against the Buffalo Bills in the team's second preseason game though, the home fans at Soldier Field were shown a lot to be excited about.

Williams and the Bears drove 92 yards for a touchdown on the opening drive of the game, capped off by a pass from Williams to Olamide Zaccheaus for a 36-year touchdown. Williams missed only one pass on the drive and finished his two series of action 6-for-10 with 107 passing yards and a touchdown.

"He's really been locked in," Johnson said. "Anytime you're a young player, there's usually a couple of steps forward and one step back. And that's really been the story of this training camp. He and I have been really open and honest about it as we've gone through. And he's had some really good practices, and he's had a couple where, it's not good enough.

"I thought really the three days of practice we had this week and this game were the most he's stacked up good days in a row right now. The challenge is going to be keep pushing that direction."

Most importantly, perhaps, was the fact that offence was not whistled for a penalty in Williams' 13 snaps of action.

Improved familiarity and comfort with the playbook as well as improved decision making are among the highest priorities for Williams to take a step forward in 2025, but what is a realistic ceiling for the signal caller in 2025?

Finding realistic comparables in Year Two for Caleb Williams

There is not a glowing history among first-overall picks at quarterback in the category of second-year performances.

Of the 19 quarterbacks taken with the first pick in the NFL Draft since Hall of Famer and legend Peyton Manning in 1998, only nine made a Pro Bowl in one of their first two seasons, while only three (Andrew Luck, Joe Burrow and Trevor Lawrence) won a playoff game in their sophomore campaigns.

The Bears play in the division that finished last season with three playoff qualifiers and the most collective wins by a division in a single season in NFL history.

The Lions (15-2) were the top team in the NFL, while the Minnesota Vikings (14-3) finished with the best record in NFL history for a wild-card team.

All this to say that whether Johnson can maximize the talent that encapsulated teams around the league heading into the 2024 draft or not, succeeding at this level this early in a quarterback's career is a tall task, and meeting expectations in year two will prove difficult for Williams and Co. at Soldier Field.