Caleb Williams credits Bears coach Ben Johnson as a stabilizing factor in his improvement

LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — Being on the cover of “Madden NFL 27” and becoming more of a national celebrity after leading the Chicago Bears to seven comeback wins last season have failed to turn the head of quarterback Caleb Williams.

At least that’s what Williams believes, and as Chicago’s minicamp ended Thursday, the third-year quarterback said there are good reasons for it. Possibly the main one is his coach, Ben Johnson.

“There’s so much to unlock, there’s so much to get better at, there’s so much left of ball for me and us and accolades that we’ll have as a team and things like that,” Williams said Thursday.

“And then having a good support system around me, having Ben and my teammates and things like that I got to look in the face and make sure I’m doing the right thing every single day to accomplish our goal.”

Johnson’s tough love last year in training camp and the offseason helped Williams transition well to a new offense in his second season despite a poor 58.1% completion rate. Going through last year with Johnson has the Bears QB feeling miles ahead of where the team started in 2025 with a season-opening loss to the Vikings.

“It’s a hell of a lot more fun for me than it was last year just because it was — I was saying it to (running backs Eric Studesville), ‘I feel like I was drowning trying to breathe or stay alive and wait for a boat to come around last year,’” Williams said. “Now this year it’s being able to start where we finished last year, play calls and words and verbiage and speak the same language and now it’s being able to grow more from an earlier stage than maybe doing it a little bit earlier in the season or halfway through the season, speaking on things that really help throughout the year.

“That’s the advantage.”

Johnson has been giving Williams daily letter grades during the offseason. The main goal is for him to improve his accuracy, which fell well short of last season’s announced goal of a 70% completion rate.

“Ball placement, being able to put the ball in the best position for the wide receivers, first starts with a completion and then from there you grow in the confidence from completing the ball, completion, completion, completion, and then it grows to, how can I place the ball better for these guys in these situations and moments throughout the games and practices?” Williams said. “It starts in practice. It starts with the mindset of that, and then from there you keep growing.

“Another thing for me is just always getting better with procedure, being able to see defenses pre-snap and having an idea of what they’ll be in or if I need to make an adjustment. It’s always going to be those couple things for me.”

How does Williams’ coach think he’s he doing at all of this?

“It’s been OK,” Johnson said.

Johnson gave every player three points of emphasis for the summer before they left Halas Hall. He didn’t want to share exactly what they were, but it’s not difficult to imagine Williams’ are targeted toward accuracy.

Johnson also is not worried about Williams getting caught up in everything going on in his life off the field, like being the Madden cover boy.

“Well, it goes back to my first conversations I’ve had with Caleb and those were he wants to win here in Chicago and he wants to win Super Bowls,” Johnson said. “That’s really his motivating factor. He’s been very clear and consistent with that message over the last year and a half that I’ve gotten to know him.”

Williams called his relationship with Johnson a reason he stays grounded and has progressed.

“I think getting to the point now there’s times where he’ll be saying something and it’s full agreeance and kind of finish his sentence on some of these things on his mentality and how he wants to win, how he wants to play and who our identity is going to be and being able to build towards that,” Williams said. “He’s obviously a lot more mature than me. He’s older than me by many years.

“So he brings a lot of wisdom to me. He notices things that I may not notice in the moment or things like that. So his information, his knowledge, his wisdom and things like that, it goes a long way for me and I’m 110 percent in on whatever he says.”

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