The Chicago Bears and quarterback Caleb Williams made a big leap in the right direction during the 2025 NFL season.
Under head coach Ben Johnson, the team went from being a mediocre squad at best to being a legitimate Super Bowl contender. They won the NFC North division title and went into the playoffs as the No. 2 seed in the conference.
Williams benefitted greatly from playing for an offensive guru like Johnson. He had a breakout season, despite starting the year off slowly. After calls for him to be benched early in the year, he is now viewed as one of the up-and-coming superstars in the league.
Keeping that in mind, the Bears know that they’re going to need to work out a new deal with Williams at some point in the fairly near future.
Chicago Bears Already Looking Into Caleb Williams Extension
Even though an extension could still be a year or two away, Chicago general manager Ryan Poles revealed that he has already started researching what that extension could look like with Williams.
"We're making progress," Poles said. "That is exciting to even be thinking about planning for that. It's exciting. But then there's a challenge after that, too…It's really a summer project. Matt Feinstein is digging into it now. We've had some preliminary conversations because we want to take some of these things into consideration as we build the team."
Getting ahead of the eight ball is a wise decision for the Bears. They dealt with some cap constraints this offseason and can’t afford to manage the financial side of the business poorly leading up to a Williams extension.
During the 2025 NFL season, Chicago saw Williams play in all 17 regular season games. He completed 58.1 percent of his pass attempts for 3,942 yards, 27 touchdowns, and just seven interceptions, while also running for 388 yards and three more touchdowns.
While it’s clear that Williams could use some work on his completion percentage, there is no question that he has superstar potential. If he can take another leap in 2026, the Bears are going to be a very difficult team to beat.
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