The Bears are in a good spot with quarterback Caleb Williams: He’s playing well enough to win, but isn’t close to hitting his ceiling.
As Williams goes into the game Sunday against the Saints, the improvements he’s making under coach Ben Johnson are evident aesthetically and statistically. He’s grasping how much time he has before the opposing pass rush closes in on him, he’s reading defenses downfield and his passer rating is up 10 points.
It’s a strong start toward developing into a franchise quarterback, and it has to continue in that direction. Johnson is the one drawing the outline of what Williams must become, and it’s up to Williams to fill it in.
One encouraging sign as this project moves along is that Williams gives no indication he has arrived. He’s pleased with the way his game is growing, but sees the same flaws everyone else does. That’s the first step in fixing them.
“That’s always something: being able to... understand where I can be and where I will be,” he said. “I’ve got a lot in the tank for this team and I’ll do whatever I have to do to help this team win.”
Even with the jump to a 98 passer rating, he’s only 17th in the NFL in that category and trails some quarterbacks in his age group like the Commanders’ Jayden Daniels and the Patriots’ Drake Maye.
As Williams and Johnson studied his performance in the 25-24 win over the Commanders on Monday, in which he completed 17 of 29 passes for 252 yards and a touchdown for a 98.6 passer rating, Williams saw a few aspects in which he could’ve played better and vaulted himself to an elite performance instead one that was merely good.
He wants to tighten up his footwork when throwing on the run, which is “weird” to him given that that’s always been a strength of his. When his steps are “off,” his accuracy as a passer gets shakier. He took a hard hit on the sideline that was avoidable.
And, perhaps most importantly when it comes to amplifying the passing attack, he needed to do a better job leading his receivers into yards after the catch with what offensive coordinator Declan Doyle calls “a runner’s ball” that hits the pass catcher in stride and directs him to open space that he might not even see because he’s focused on the ball, but for which the quarterback has an ideal vantage point.
“At the least you try to give them a catchable ball,” Williams said. “At the maximum you want to give him the best ball so he can go run.”
Two of Johnson’s core metrics are Expected Points Added and Completion Percentage Over Expected — EPA and CPOE, respectively — and Williams has ample room to improve there. EPA can be simplified by making plays that lead to scoring. CPOE is fairly self-explanatory: Taking into account a variety of factors such as the opposing pass rush and tightness of pass coverage, how is a quarterback doing on completing passes compared to what is reasonably expected in those situations?
Williams has completed just 61.6% of his passes, which is nearly a point below last season and ranks 29th out of 34 qualifying quarterbacks. NFL Next Gen Stats calculated his expected completion percentage at 71.5, putting him last in the league with a CPOE at minus-9.9 points. Maye, for contrast, has completed 73.2% of his passes and is 8.5 points above his expected completion percentage.
That means while Maye is completing passes that the average quarterback can’t, Williams is missing passes that typically should be made.
That’s going to make it tough to hit Johnson’s target of completing 70% of his passes this season. Williams can get closer to it by sticking with plays longer and making sharper throws on his checkdowns. Johnson said he always knows where those options are, but has been inconsistent cycling to them and making accurate passes.
“A lot of those numbers get inflated when late in a play you are able to find an outlet,” Doyle said. “If No. 1 and 2 get shut down, we have to continue playing through that progression and working to find 3, 4 and 5. That is really how those numbers go up.”
If Williams gets better at that, it’ll mean a lot for the Bears.
There is no greater source of in-season improvement for a team than to see its young quarterback catch fire. The team goes with it. That happened to the Packers in 2023, Jordan Love’s first season starting, and they rallied from a 3-6 start to finish 9-8 and win a playoff game.
The Bears are 3-2 with Williams playing well. They’ll surge if he starts playing great.