This always was going to be a transitional season for Bears quarterback Caleb Williams while head coach Ben Johnson rewired him. It can be tough for veteran quarterbacks to adjust to a new offense, let alone a 24-year-old whose rookie season was mostly wasted in a dysfunctional situation.
It’s not surprising, then, that Williams has continued to go up and down as he grows and adjusts. He has shown he has the potential to be great, especially late in games, and the Bears are looking for more of that as they fight through the playoff race.
That’s good enough for Year 2 if he can keep doing it and the Bears can keep winning as he works through some necessary improvements. The big-picture goal for Williams, however, is much larger than where he and the Bears stand now. Like any team that drafts a quarterback high, the Bears hope he rises to elite status while he’s still on his rookie contract, which runs through 2027.
As soon as Williams hit the field for training camp as a rookie, it was evident he was a more competent passer right then than predecessors Justin Fields and Mitch Trubisky were in their third season. That only has become more clear as Williams has progressed.
While accuracy remains a significant issue, he is ahead of both of them at this point in his career. The Bears’ 24-15 victory Friday against the Eagles was Williams’ 29th start, and he has more touchdown passes (37) and far fewer interceptions (11) than Fields (31, 25) or Trubisky (34, 21) did.
That’s not all-encompassing, but it’s a start. Williams mostly avoids the killer mistakes that took down the other two. The interception number is even more impressive, considering he has thrown a lot more passes. He has thrown a pick on only 1.1% of his passes, whereas Trubisky was at 2.4% and Fields at 3.6%.
Williams has thrown interceptions on 1.3% of his passes this season, which ranked ninth in the NFL entering Sunday.
That statistic sends a few encouraging signals. Williams generally is a good decision-maker, has a good grasp of Johnson’s offense and can read defenses well. Johnson said going into the season that little to none of what former head coach Matt Eberflus and former offensive coordinator Shane Waldron taught Williams would carry over, but Williams did get valuable experience playing all 17 games last season against a variety of defenses.
Johnson hasn’t shied away from criticizing some of Williams’ choices in the pocket, but he usually seems to like the way he’s seeing the field and going through his progressions.
At the end of Trubisky’s second season, then-head coach Matt Nagy openly vented frustration about his struggles to run the Bears’ offense and to pick up defensive schemes. Fields still was getting baited into turnovers by savvy defenders in his third season and struggled to put the right touch on his passes.
All three quarterbacks are athletic and gifted scramblers, but only Williams has found the right mix of passing and running.
Nagy coached Trubisky to be a more traditional pocket passer, which wasn’t his strength. Fields was an unbelievable runner, but he opted for that far too often as a replacement for passing, rather than to supplement it the way the Ravens’ Lamar Jackson and the Bills’ Josh Allen do.
Williams is pass-first all the way, but his agility and pocket awareness make him hard to sack. And when he’s in a jam, sprinting for a first down is a viable option. He’s passing for 226.8 yards per game and adding 25.5 on the ground, which is in the neighborhood of Jackson’s and Allen’s splits.
To become the Bears’ first 4,000-yard passer, by the way, Williams will have to average 255.6 yards in the final five games, starting Sunday at the Packers. He’s on pace for 3,856, which still would set a franchise record.
Williams’ reliability in key moments is another sign he’s trending up. He has a higher passer rating on third downs (87.7) and in the red zone (84.0) than Fields or Trubisky and has been excellent this season with the game on the line, with an NFL-best five fourth-quarter comebacks.
After starting 11-for-29 against the Eagles, Williams was 6-for-7 at the end and buried them with a tough throw for a 28-yard touchdown pass to tight end Cole Kmet.
His throwing accuracy — Pro Football Reference has charted only 62.1% of his passes as on-target, second-to-last in the league — is something that still could be fixed. He is 33rd in the NFL with a 58.1 completion percentage and has been under 60% in eight of his last nine games after Johnson said he should be shooting for 70%.
But Allen, for example, completed only 56.3% of his passes in his first two seasons, then corrected some mechanics and has completed 65.7% since. That’s something to address during the offseason.
Williams is far from perfect, but this season isn’t about him being perfect. The important question is whether he’s headed in the right direction. It’s fine to be a work in progress for now, especially if he still is doing enough to win.