How Chicago Bears’ Caleb Williams can make major leap in 2026

Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams made incredible strides in his first season playing for head coach Ben Johnson.

Johnson, it seems tapped into Williams’ athleticism and built a system around the former Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback’s best traits before introducing new and effective elements in the passing game as the season wore on.

“Statistically,” former NFL quarterback Sage Rosenfels recently told Between The Hashmarks. “The teams that are under center, and run with under-center runs, combined with bootlegs and play-action, those quarterbacks are continually playing the best of all quarterbacks in the NFL.

“With Caleb Williams, whether it was in high school or college at Oklahoma or USC, he was primarily a shotgun quarterback. Then, as a rookie, that staff seemed to say ‘let’s try to make use of Caleb’s athleticism and put him in Shotgun.’ But, Ben Johnson comes in with the system from Detroit, that was his system and they were the most under-center bootleg play action team in football over the past four seasons, and if you look at the Rams, the Seahawks, the Lions, the Cowboys with Prescott, those are the teams, those are thequarterbacks who are under center the most and run the most bootlegs and play action.”

Thanks to Johnson tapping into what Williams does best, the Bears’ second-year quarterback passed for a career-high 3,942 yards with 27 touchdowns to just seven interceptions, while powering seven comeback victories and an eventual come-from-behind playoff win over the division rival Green Bay Packers.

However, there are still some key areas Williams can continue to improve in.

How Chicago Bears’ Caleb Williams can become an All-Pro in 2026

If the 2025 season represents the floor for Williams’ ability and production under Johnson, the Bears may have one of the top quarterbacks in the sport on their hands.

At least one analyst believes there’s a realistic path to Williams becoming an All-Pro in the near future.

“If you get Caleb to play in rhythm at a higher rate, now you’re talking about someone who can be an All Pro player,” NFL analyst Matt Bowen said, during an appearance on the Hoge and Jahns Podcast. “That’s what he can be because he has the highlight plays off of that. He has the plays that, from a coaching perspective, I can’t teach. So there should be incredibly high expectations for the Bears offense and for Caleb Williams going into his third pro season. Now when he gets back to Halas Hall in the offseason, it’s not learning new terminology. It’s not watching tape of the Detroit Lions. Now, you’re sitting in those meeting rooms yourself scouting yourself.”

The physical tools have never been in question, but Williams’ greatest weapon in 2026 will be his own experience.

As he returns to Halas Hall to begin ‘scouting himself,’ he isn’t just preparing for a third season … he’s preparing to prove that his record-breaking 2025 was only the beginning

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