Caleb Williams’ Bears career was born in Buffalo.
One year and one week ago, he took the field for the first time in an NFL preseason game, whipping passes and pump-faking opponents on his way to field goals on his only two possessions. By the time he left the field with a 101.8 passer rating — and that was after two of his seven passes were dropped — Bears fans had reason to believe. Williams seemed to be the Bears’ long-awaited answer under center.
When he takes the field Sunday against the same Bills for his first preseason action of the year, Williams won’t be significantly closer to being the franchise’s long-promised franchise quarterback than he was a year ago. If the Bears are lucky, they’ll know for sure in a month or two. If not, it’ll take all season — or maybe it won’t happen at all.
The Bears are starting over offensively under head coach Ben Johnson after a Year 1 calamity that saw Williams play for two head coaches and three offensive coordinators. Even Johnson has to remind himself to remain patient with his offense.
“We do want it done a certain way and we know what winning football looks like,” he said. “But at the same time, we’re at a different stage in Year 1 than where we’ll be in Year 2 or Year 3 of this offense — and this defense.”
Of the six quarterbacks drafted with the first 12 picks in 2024, only two are learning a new system in their second year — Williams and the Patriots’ Drake Maye. The Commanders’ Jayden Daniels won Offensive Rookie of the Year last year, while the Falcons’ Michael Penix Jr. overtook Kirk Cousins as the starter. Bo Nix led the Broncos to their first playoff berth in a decade. The Vikings’ J.J. McCarthy suffered a season-ending knee injury last preseason last year and will start Week 1 against the Bears.
Bears fans will undoubtedly compare Williams to those names — but also to Mitch Trubisky and Justin Fields, first-round quarterbacks who did not live up to expectations after inheriting a new staff in Year 2. When those two struggled during training camp, their coaches dismissed it as growing pains. Those issues tortured them on Sundays, though — Trubisky lasted four seasons, Fields three, and neither won a playoff game.
Both, like Williams, had their head coach fired after Year 1 and had to learn a new playbook the following offseason.
“I think the No. 1 thing that helps quarterbacks is continuity,” Trubisky said Friday after the Bears’ joint practice against the Bills, where he serves as a backup. “But at the same time it’s exciting, especially when you get an offensive mind like Ben Johnson …
“You just have to embrace it. Obviously, you learn as much as you can. It is going to take some time to get through that learning curve of knowing the offense like the back of your hand. … It does take some time from Year 1 to Year 2.”
Fairly or not, Williams carries the weight of the Bears’ previous quarterback failures with him. A bad practice — or series of them —unnerves the fan base. Television debates about his practice performance can give fans a nervous tick. Take the viral video earlier this month of Williams throwing a football toward a net, missing and pouting — in reality, the Bears quarterbacks were grabbing the ball as fast as they could and throwing toward the corner of a net without touching the laces. Williams was mad because he lost a friendly bet with his teammates.
Those who have screamed loudest about Williams’ play haven’t seen him throw a football in person since January. Those with two feet on the ground at Halas Hall have seen him ride a rollercoaster with more dips than climbs. Issues before the snap — delays of game, false starts, illegal formations and spitting the play out in the huddle — were disturbing at first and are subsiding with the time. Williams’ accuracy has fallen far below Johnson’s standards of a 70% completion percentage. Williams has developed a connection with receivers Rome Odunze and Olamide Zaccheaus and tight end Colston Loveland, but needs more reps with the team’s plethora of targets. He’s still best when he’s throwing on the run, but the Bears need Williams to be more decisive inside the pocket. Johnson has explained his demands to Williams in terms of a Navy SEAL — he needs him to make the right decisions, quickly.
Retired left tackle Terron Armstead was on the Dolphins sideline during the Bears’ joint practice last week. He said on his YouTube show “The Set” that he saw the talent that made Williams the No. 1 overall pick, but that his process “has to improve, and pretty fast,” for him to succeed.
“He has to be able to diagnose his threats, where the pressure is coming from, pre-snap reads, kinda understanding coverages,” Armstead said.
Williams showed those bad habits last year, when he finished 25th in passer rating among quarterbacks with at least 100 passes and was sacked more than all but two quarterbacks in the history of the league.
The Bears will argue that they intentionally overloaded Williams during their 12-step offensive installation process during training camp — “Getting the full gamut as far as our offense and what we’re trying to expose him to,” quarterbacks coach J.T. Barrett said — and are now whittling the playbook down to what works for him.
“There’s growth every single day,” pass game coordinator Press Taylor said. “So, that’s what we’re looking for. How quickly that is or when that comes to be where everybody – this has met the standard – I think that’s going to continue to evolve as we go.”
Sunday will be the next benchmark for Williams — for the first time since the Bears’ season finale, he’ll have defenders trying to tackle him. His evolution, though, is nowhere close to complete.
The Commanders know what they have in Daniels. The Broncos can say the same of Nix.
By the end of the season, at the latest, the Bears hope to say the same about Williams.
“There are no shortcuts,” offensive coordinator Declan Doyle said. “There’s no way to make it easy. You have to really go through that process, and that’s what we’ve been going through, since we started really, when we got here.”