This was always going to be a transitional season for Bears quarterback Caleb Williams as 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 flashes that 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 is much larger than where he and the team stand now. Like any team when drafting a quarterback high, the Bears hope he rises to elite status while 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 has only become clearer as Williams has progressed.
While passing accuracy remains a significant issue, he is ahead of either of them at this point in his career. The Bears’ 24-15 win over the Eagles on Friday was Williams’ 29th start, and he has more touchdown passes (37) and far fewer interceptions (11) than Fields (31, 25) or Trubisky (34, 21).
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 just 1.1% of his throws, whereas Trubisky was at 2.4% and Fields was at 3.6%.
Williams has thrown interceptions on 1.3% of his passes this season, which ranked ninth in the NFL going into 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 how Matt Eberflus and Shane Waldron coached Williams would carry over, but he did get valuable experience playing all 17 games 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, coach Matt Nagy openly vented frustration about his struggles to run the Bears’ offense and to pick up defensive schemes. Fields was still 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 far too often opted for that as a replacement for passing rather than to supplement it the way Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen do.
Williams is pass-first all the way, but his agility and pocket awareness make him very difficult to sack, and when he’s in a jam, sprinting for a first down is viable. He’s passing for 226.8 yards per game and adding 25.5 on the ground, which is in the neighborhood of Jackson and Allen’s splits.
To become the Bears’ first 4,000-yard passer, by the way, Williams will need to average 255.6 yards over the final five games, starting Sunday at the Packers. He’s on pace for 3,856, which would still 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 this season has been excellent with the game on the line with an NFL-best five fourth-quarter comebacks.
After starting 11-for-29 passing against the Eagles, Williams completed 6 of 7 at the end and buried the Eagles with a tough throw for a 28-yard touchdown pass to tight end Cole Kmet.
His throwing accuracy — Pro Football Reference charted just 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 after Johnson said he should be shooting for 70% and has been under 60% in eight of his last nine games.
But Allen, for example, completed just 56.3% of his passes over his first two seasons, then corrected some mechanics and has completed 65.7% since. That’s something to address in the offseason.
He’s far from perfect, but this season isn’t about Williams being perfect. The important question is whether he’s headed the right direction. It’s fine to still be a work in progress for now, especially if he’s still doing enough to win.