Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams established many routines in their first season together. One of Johnson’s favorites was their post-practice meeting. All season long, they’d finish their work on the field and, once Williams got out of pads and into street clothes, the Chicago Bears’ rookie coach and second-year quarterback would log anywhere from 60 and 90 minutes together in Johnson’s office.
Much has been made of how Williams once called his early-season relationship with his coach “fragile.” But in those post-practice meetings, they seem to have built something solid. And when I asked Johnson about the moments with Williams that were most fun last season, the coach pointed to those one-on-one sessions, where he would lay out the nuances of opposing defenses in relation to the Bears’ game plan.
“It’s just this complete clarity of how we want to attack that opponent this week,” Johnson told me in March at the NFL Annual League Meeting in Phoenix. “I think the coolest thing was seeing [Williams’] development from early within the season.”
It’s not uncommon for an NFL head coach to spend time along with his beginning quarterback on daily basis of the season. However it’s uncommon to see a coach have as a lot of an impression on his quarterback as Johnson appeared to have on Williams in 2025. In spite of everything, right now final yr, there have been issues that the earlier Bears regime left the QB in a state of developmental regression. Chicago received simply 5 video games in 2024 and fired its head coach in midseason for the primary time in franchise historical past. Williams took 68 sacks, tied for the third-most all time.
It was a tricky rookie yr for the No. 1 total decide, who’d been touted as a generational prospect.
Final June, throughout their first offseason actions collectively, Ben Johnson was exhausting on Caleb Williams after the No. 1 total decide’s tough rookie season. (Picture by Michael Reaves/Getty Pictures)
However these coach-QB conferences helped catalyze the Bears’ breakout success in 2025. Williams engineered six fourth-quarter comebacks to steer all NFL quarterbacks final season, incomes the nicknames “Iceman” and “Cardiac Caleb” — and only recently, the quilt of “Madden NFL 27.” The Bears went 11-6 and made the playoffs for the primary time since 2020.
As Johnson tells it, these conferences had a cascading impact on the connection between coach and QB. Every little thing improved: communication, repetition, execution.
“We would meet the night time earlier than the sport to go over his favourite calls, and to see how that went from early within the season to what it seemed like on the finish of the season, [it was] far more fluid,” Johnson informed me. “We simply noticed the sport a lot extra by the identical lens because the yr went on. I believe all these quarterbacks noticed that and witnessed that firsthand. So I believe that was the best factor, simply to see the place it began to the place it completed.”
Caleb Williams reveals off his “Iceman” pose on the deluxe cowl of “Madden NFL 27.” (Picture: EA Sports activities)
On the finish of Chicago’s season, which concluded in an time beyond regulation loss to the Los Angeles Rams within the divisional spherical, Johnson mentioned he wished Williams to get away from soccer for a short time. However simply earlier than he let Williams go, Johnson had a message for his QB in regards to the 2026 season.
“It should be tougher. I’ll push you extra,” Johnson informed Williams, per the QB.
“Yessir, let’s do it,” Williams remembered telling Johnson.
Whereas the gamers took their day without work after the season, Johnson and his employees spent their time self-scouting, a course of that spanned roughly a month and a half. They dove into each part and each ingredient of the sport.
“As you watch clip in and clip out, I believe it might have been straightforward to get slightly bit upset or disenchanted that it did not look fairly the way in which we wish,” Johnson informed me. “And but I see it as, ‘Man, we obtained a lot room for enchancment. That is nice. That is gonna be good to get these guys again in, and so they’re gonna have the ability to see this. And hey, we will be so significantly better as a complete group if we simply make these few small modifications going ahead.’”
Williams, who grew up on the East Coast and went to school on the West Coast, has embraced the Chicago sports activities tradition. Right here, he takes in a Blackhawks sport along with his buddy, Cubs All-Star Pete Crow-Armstrong (entrance left), in January. (Picture by Chase Agnello-Dean/NHLI by way of Getty Pictures)
After all, I used to be most curious in regards to the Bears’ findings on the QB. Johnson informed me he would boil the self-scout into three takeaways and objectives for Williams, whose work is nicely underway, with minicamp in session this week. Johnson would not disclose all three factors of emphasis, however he mentioned one merchandise after Williams completed the 2025 season with a 58.1 completion proportion, second-worst within the league.
“We have to get the completion proportion up,” Johnson informed me. “And so we’ll take a look at that as we undergo the cut-ups of the place we are able to finest try this. There have been in all probability 80 or 90 throws on tape that we felt like might have been completions.
“You are at all times going to have some drops by the route-runners. … We have to discover a option to full a few of these different ones, although. That is actually the problem for Caleb. If we try this, then we’ll be 65%, 70% completion, which is nearer to the place we need to be.”
That’s the problem for Williams — or at the very least one among them. The QB is already dealing with that problem head-on.
“It begins with reps,” Williams informed the media in Might at OTAs when requested about reaching the coach’s purpose of a 70% completion charge. “After which the following half, it comes right down to consolation within the offense. And I believe that towards the top of the yr, it began to develop for me. … The final half is the small print, whether or not it is the receiver’s steps and the place his landmark is to interrupt or settle. After which from there, it is with the ability to ship a catchable ball, whether or not it is velocity or ball placement.”
In the meantime, Johnson is placing loads of challenges on his personal plate.
That features making sense of all of the Bears’ slender victories and come-from-behind video games. As spectacular as that high quality was for Chicago, it may possibly additionally result in regression. Have a look at the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs as a cautionary story. They made the Tremendous Bowl in 2024 with a run of 17 consecutive wins in one-possession games (a streak that began in 2023). However the Chiefs misplaced 9 one-possession video games in 2025 and completed 6-11.
As I attempted to spit out a query about whether or not the Bears have been fearful about that very same destiny, Johnson, smiling vast, interrupted me.
“You assume it was fluky? Is that what you’re getting at?” he requested me.
That’s not it.
Anybody who listened to the Bears clarify how they beat the Inexperienced Bay Packers on a bomb to receiver DJ Moore in Week 16 is aware of that Chicago’s comebacks weren’t fluky. They have been a product of exhausting work and cautious planning. That 46-yard walk-off play exemplified how Johnson’s regular hand and sharp thoughts can actually change the sport, which was why Williams known as him “the best coach in the world” after the game. Johnson had that play prepared for that second. That’s how the Bears received.
“That is a play that Coach and I — we have been sitting in his workplace, a kind of conferences — and we mentioned that play,” Williams mentioned after the sport on the FOX broadcast.
However historical past has a manner of repeating itself, and dramatic wins are sometimes not sustainable. Johnson admitted he’s thought of that.
“It goes again to a time period that I discovered early as a coordinator known as ‘unstable success,’” he informed me.
Because the Detroit Lions’ offensive coordinator earlier than coming to Chicago, Johnson knew that success within the display screen sport and the purple zone didn’t routinely carry over from yr to yr. It was on the teaching employees and gamers to create and maintain success, quite than anticipate the identical outcomes, even with the identical elements. So Johnson made that an emphasis each offseason. Detroit was a top-five group within the purple zone for 3 years in a row, from 2022 to 2024.
“I view that as a problem,” Johnson informed me. “So to your level, would you like all these video games to return right down to the very finish like that? No, hopefully our development as a group implies that we rating extra early and extra usually and our protection performs slightly bit higher when it comes to limiting the factors, and we’re not in these spots.
“However on the similar time, I do not need to lose that. I do not need to lose that means to attain 14 factors in lower than two minutes. That is one thing that you’ll need to lean on sooner or later. And I believe that is a part of who our guys are. That is a part of who Caleb is. … I view it as a problem. And I believe if you body it that manner, I believe our guys will see it the identical manner.”
Williams celebrates after the Bears beat the Packers within the wild-card spherical final season, rallying from a 21-3 halftime deficit. (Picture by Todd Rosenberg/Getty Pictures)
That truly loops again to the dialogue of completion proportion. As a result of if Williams turns into extra environment friendly, Johnson mentioned he might envision eventualities the place the group may not want late comebacks to win video games. However that modifications the equation in additional methods than one. Effectivity usually means taking what’s obtainable. And in immediately’s NFL, with two-high-safety defenses rising more and more well-liked, effectivity requires quarterbacks to examine the ball down and/or make good use of the brief (and fast) passing sport.
How will the Bears stability that with Williams, who, contemplating his impressively low sack (27) and interception (7) numbers final season, was simply the correct quantity of aggressive in 2025?
“He knew when he might take probabilities and never. And positively if you’re in that, ‘Hey, we’re in fourth downs from right here on out’ mode, I believe that type of helps his mentality,” Johnson informed me. “It is so curious with him. He is simply at all times been such a fantastic protector of the ball. For a man that may be slightly bit aggressive at instances with a few of these throws he makes, he not often places it in hurt’s manner.
“And so I believe that is slightly bit distinctive to him. And so perhaps it is a kind of issues we simply have to encourage him to open it up slightly bit extra earlier in video games, when he is likely to be just a bit bit extra conservative in among the decision-making early in video games.”
Ben Johnson has a plan to ensure the breakout 2025 Bears do not regress in 2026. (Picture by Todd Rosenberg/Getty Pictures)
In case you want any additional proof that the Bears constructed one thing enviable final yr, simply take a look at their teaching employees strikes this offseason. After only one yr in Chicago, Johnson’s employees produced two offensive coordinators for different groups, with Declan Doyle taking up the Baltimore Ravens’ offense and Eric Bieniemy returning to his previous gig as Kansas Metropolis’s OC.
It’s clear that groups need the recipe for Chicago’s secret sauce.
One factor that has been a standard chorus from Johnson this offseason is that the Bears are beginning over. They’re tearing all the things right down to floor zero, and so they’re piecing collectively a brand-new model of the group for 2026.
“The primary enemy that we might have proper now could be entitlement or complacency based mostly on what we did a yr in the past,” Johnson informed me.
There’s little question the Bears are younger and gifted. There’s little question they confirmed great progress in 2025. There’s little question their quarterback has the potential to be nice.
And what number of instances have we seen that go mistaken in Chicago?
However this explicit group appears completely different, and that is due to Ben Johnson, who’s hell-bent on bridging the hole between objectives and outcomes. Simply ask Caleb Williams.
