How everything is about to get much easier for Caleb Williams

Williams gets scrutinized most often for this, especially delay of game. However, coach Ben Johnson is distributing blame evenly while promising this all should end very soon.

"Yeah, I would say it’s not just him," Johnson said of Williams. "We ha d some procedure issues in the game the other day as well."

Johnson sees it as over now because of changes in practice.

"We have hit it from the beginning in terms of how much we are loading guys down (installing offense)," he said. "Some of the play calls are a little bit longer than others. You know? He and I met yesterday. I am pleased with how he is able to spit these plays out right now.

"He has made significant progress in that regard. And once we get going here in the game week, we’re going to condense the verbiage even more. So we have challenged him. It has been a lot. That was by design. So if we struggle at all in the huddle getting the play out, then, yeah, the delays are going to pop up. And that’s a little bit of part of the learning process of us growing. But by design, we have made this very challenging and hard. And we know what we need to do as a staff to alleviate some of that pressure. I think Week 1 we’re going to be in a good spot."

Passing game coordinator Press Taylor described the nuts and bolts of how the problems can actually occur. It's enough to make a head spin.

"There’s certain calls that you get a number of different letters," Taylor said. "I mean, there could be tags in the formation to tell guys who to motion, where to motion to, tags in the play call that tell you certain things, kills that you’re having to get through.

"So, sometimes you heard a word differently, sometimes when you’re not game-planning, too, there’s kind of the whole inventory of the offense that can be thrown at you at any time in a practice. Where in a (regular-season) game, it’s honed in, you’ve repped it every single day. And by Sunday you’ve seen four days worth of work and certain calls where the quarterback is anticipating the play calls based on what’s in."

Williams is getting hit now with play calls from out of left field, some very long based on formations and other changes. He needs to know them, but if it's a play they installed back in the beginning of training camp and they've added many more since then, the delay it takes getting the play called in the huddle and then organizing at the line is probably understandable.

"It’s a little tougher sometimes when the whole thing can get thrown at you and, ‘Did he mean to say that? Did he say that?’ " Taylor said. "You’re not exactly sure because there’s not always a game plan built for a specific practice (in preseason).

"So, sometimes we can make that challenging, sometimes that’s just what we’re trying to get. We want a sense of urgency with the way we communicate in the huddle and at the line of scrimmage."

As Johnson said, with the second preseason game arriving there is more of the offense aimed at opponents specifically. By the time regular season practice starts, it's all opponent-specific and has been rehashed. It's a case where the flaws of this type should vanish.

Should and will are different words and the Bears will need to show it really will happen once the regular season hits.

They could gain plenty of confidence just by wiping those out to start the preseason game Sunday night with Buffalo, though.

As for the footballs on the ground, Williams and his receivers will need to fix this themselves.