Insider shares how Bears want Caleb Williams to improve after rocky rookie season

First-year Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson has insisted this spring that he's giving second-year quarterback Caleb Williams and others fresh starts after the club endured a tumultuous 2024 season. 

For Williams, part of that reset involved completing some homework assignments this spring. 

"There were two areas where the coaches wanted improvement from Williams," Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer wrote for a piece published Tuesday. "Both related to how he carried himself as the quarterback, based on what the 2024 season showed. One was body language. The other was presnap procedure."

Specifically, analysts and former players criticized Williams for appearing "defeated" and for exhibiting what was referred to as "irritating" body language during a 10-game losing streak last season. Both offensive coordinator Shane Waldron and head coach Matt Eberflus were fired by the Bears during the season, and ESPN statistics show that Williams ended his rookie season with a league-high 68 sacks.

"While the coaches understood the beating he took," Breer said about Williams' development, "they showed film to emphasize how he’d been slow to pull himself up off the ground. It was a long year. People got fired in-season. And in adverse circumstances, the staff explained, having a quarterback who was rolling with the punches would go a long way. On the latter, there was a smattering of small things — like on the first play of one game, he turned to his left, thinking the motion was coming, when it was actually coming from the right — that needed to be cleaned up."

Per Pro Football Reference, Williams finished the 2024 regular season ranked 31st out of 36 qualified players with a 46.7 adjusted QBR. He was 22nd with an average of 208.3 passing yards per game, and he tossed 20 touchdown passes with six interceptions over 17 contests. 

More recently, Williams' name has been in headlines throughout the second half of May after it was revealed that he and his family allegedly considered attempting to prevent the Bears from selecting him with the first overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. Breer noted that Williams appears to be highly regarded by the current Chicago staff and has been spending time with veteran backup Case Keenum "to work around the CBA-mandated limits on what the coaches can actually do with the players at this point in the calendar."

Williams will eventually need to publicly address what occurred before he ultimately decided that he'd be OK with ending up in Chicago last year.