The Bears are in a good spot with quarterback Caleb Williams: He’s playing well enough for them to win but isn’t close to hitting his ceiling.
As Williams enters the game Sunday against the Saints, the improvements he’s making under head coach Ben Johnson are evident aesthetically and statistically. He’s grasping how much time he has before the opposing pass rush closes in on him, he’s reading defenses downfield and his passer rating is up 10 points.
It’s a strong start toward him developing into a franchise quarterback, and things have to continue in that direction. Johnson is the one drawing the outline of what Williams must become, and it’s up to Williams to fill it in.
One encouraging sign as this project moves along is that Williams gives no indication he has arrived. He’s pleased with the way his game is growing but sees the same flaws everyone else does. That’s the first step in fixing them.
‘‘That’s always something: being able to understand where I can be and where I will be,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ve got a lot in the tank for this team, and I’ll do whatever I have to do to help this team win.’’
Even with the jump to a 98 passer rating, Williams ranks only 17th in the NFL in that category and trails some quarterbacks in his age group, such as the Commanders’ Jayden Daniels and the Patriots’ Drake Maye.
As Williams and Johnson studied his performance in the Bears’ victory Monday against the Commanders, in which he completed 17 of 29 passes for 252 yards and a touchdown for a 98.6 passer rating, Williams saw a few aspects in which he could have played better.
He wants to tighten up his footwork when throwing on the run, which is ‘‘weird’’ to him, given that it always has been a strength of his. When his steps are off, his accuracy as a passer gets shakier. He took a hard hit on the sideline that was avoidable.
And, perhaps most important when it comes to improving the passing attack, he needed to do a better job of leading his receivers into yards after the catch with what offensive coordinator Declan Doyle called ‘‘a runner’s ball’’ that hits the pass-catcher in stride and directs him to open space that he might not even see because he’s focused on the ball.
‘‘At the least, you try to give them a catchable ball,’’ Williams said. ‘‘At the maximum, you want to give him the best ball, so he can go run.’’
Two of Johnson’s core metrics are expected points added and completion percentage over expected — EPA and CPOE, respectively — and Williams has ample room to improve there. EPA can be simplified by making plays that lead to scoring. CPOE is fairly self-explanatory: Taking into account a variety of factors, such as the opposing pass rush and tightness of pass coverage, how is a quarterback doing on completing passes compared to what is reasonably expected in such situations?
Williams has completed only 61.6% of his passes, which is nearly a point below last season and ranks 29th out of 34 qualifying quarterbacks. NFL Next Gen Stats calculated his expected completion percentage at 71.5, putting him last in the league with a CPOE of minus-9.9 points. Maye, by contrast, has completed 73.2% of his passes and is 8.5 points above his expected completion percentage.
That means while Maye is completing passes the average quarterback can’t, Williams is missing passes that typically should be made.
That’s going to make it tough for him to hit Johnson’s target of completing 70% of his passes this season. Williams can get closer to it by sticking with plays longer and making sharper throws on his checkdowns. Johnson said Williams always knows where those options are but has been inconsistent cycling to them and making accurate passes.
‘‘A lot of those numbers get inflated when, late in a play, you are able to find an outlet,’’ Doyle said. ‘‘If No. 1 and 2 get shut down, we have to continue playing through that progression and working to find 3, 4 and 5. That is really how those numbers go up.’’
If Williams gets better at that, it’ll mean a lot for the Bears.
There is no greater source of in-season improvement for a team than to see its young quarterback catch fire. The team goes with him. That happened with the Packers in 2023, Jordan Love’s first season as a starter, and they rallied from a 3-6 start to finish 9-8 and win a playoff game.
The Bears are 3-2 with Williams playing well. They really will surge if he starts playing great.