Chicago Bears: Ben Johnson gets honest on what Caleb Williams needs to do better in 2026

When the Chicago Bears drafted Caleb Williams with the first overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, the hope was that he would become their franchise quarterback. He certainly showed that he could be as a rookie, posting a 62.5% completion percentage to go with 3,541 passing yards, 20 touchdowns, six interceptions, and an 87.8 passer rating.

Following the 2024 NFL season, Chicago hired Ben Johnson to be their next head coach, and the hope was that he would help Williams take steps forward to becoming a more complete quarterback.

And he did; but there is still work to do.

Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson needs Caleb Williams to work on his decision-making

In his first season with Johnson as his head coach, Williams had a 58.1% completion percentage, 3,942 passing yards, 27 touchdown passes, seven interceptions, and a passer rating of 90.1.

Clearly, almost all of these numbers were improvements over the 2024 season that Williams had. Noticeably different, though, was the completion percentage, which dropped considerably.

It is something that Johnson wants Williams to work on improving this upcoming season:

“I’m going to mistime some calls, or they’re going to throw something at us that we weren’t prepared for. And that’s on him and his athletic ability to bail us out.

“And so that’s what I’m looking forward to, is we’re going to be able to have those conversations in the quarterback room of when can we hang in there and get this ball out to the primary or the No. 2 receiver, and when do we need to extend, and naturally, I think we got to get better when we extend plays, capitalizing on those as well.”

As one can see from Johnson’s comments, he wants Williams to be better when extending plays with his legs. Instead of being so quick to throw the ball away, at times, the Bears head coach wants his quarterback to be more patient and hit secondary targets.

Williams is a young quarterback, and this is a skill that takes time to develop. If he can do so in 2026, though, Chicago’s offense is going to be even more dynamic.

More Chicago Bears news from ChiCity Sports

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• Sean McVay leaves no doubt on his opinion of Bears QB Caleb Williams
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