The steep hurdle Ben Johnson and staff must clear to avoid failure

Patra points out all sorts of valid potential reasons why Johnson could struggle, like McDaniels, Adam Gase, Marty Mornhinweg and Cam Cameron did even after they built strong reputations as play callers.

However, Patra fails to grasp onto the one major reason it could happen, even though he gets his hands all over it with his attempt.

The most obvious reason Johnson could fail is because he might not properly develop Caleb Williams due to his own lack of experience at developing young QBs. Patra does ID a possible failure by Williams as the reason Johnson ultimately fails but not because the QB isn't developed properly.

Instead, he suggests it's because Williams just doesn't have the ability to be the guy.

Being unable to develop Williams is a real possibility and it has nothing to do with how past staffs failed to develop Mitchell Trubisky and Justin Fields in Chicago. It's a possible problem because the coaches on this staff—offensive coordinator Declan Doyle, passing game coordinator Press Taylor and quarterbacks coach J.T. Barrett—have no more experience developing a young QB than Johnson.

Johnson has had great success calling plays and devising an offense, but does he have the patience to work with a young QB through trial and error on an every day basis? So far so good but it's too early to say.

The lone staff exception to this lack of experience is Taylor, and in Taylor's case it's questionable how much success his work yielded because his young QBs were Carson Wentz and Trevor Lawrence.

Offensive coordinator Declan Doyle was a tight ends coach and didn't coach QBs.

Quarterbacks coach J.T. Barrett has no more experience coaching QBs or even playing QB than the last quarterbacks coach, Kerry Joseph. Neither played the position in the NFL, although both had quarterbacking experience in college. In fact, Barrett had less pro experience than Joseph, who was an exceptional CFL QB. Both had been an assistant QB coach two years in the NFL.

Johnson thinks he can draw from work with successful veterans Jared Goff, Ryan Tannehill and Matthew Stafford during the past. In fact, he cited Tannehill as an example of working with an inexperienced QB and then succeeding—but Johnson wasn't the quarterbacks coach, offensive coordinator or any sort of QB coach with Miami back when Tannehill was a young Dolphins QB.

Johnson has described his approach with younger QBs.

"You have to be able to tell them when it's good and when it's not good enough, in front of their peers," Johnson said. "We spend a lot of time together, one-on-one, as well. Some of the best things that I did when I became the coordinator was the quarterback and the play-caller need to see the play exactly the same. You don't develop that trust unless you spend a lot of time together."

All of this might be true, but again, he hasn't actually proven he can do this with a young QB.

Until Williams actually steps forward and combines fewer mistakes consistently with making spectacular plays, the inability to develop a young QB will rate as the No. 1 reason this coaching staff can fail.