What Caleb Williams did to prepare for Ben Johnson's QB training

A starting point is the presnap procedure they worked on during early OTAs and kept right on working at though minicamp and even through the rookie session of OTAs that Williams showed up for in mid-June. Johnson and Williams kept in touch on this by phone during the six-week break.

"That's calling the plays, that's the motions, that's the shifts, that's the cadence," Johnson said. "We can continue to carry that. We use that as a weapon and that's not going to change. That's certainly an advantage for us on offense.

"Beyond that, though, there were some footwork things that we wanted to clean up. Trusting the timing of your feet, being able to anticipate throws. There's a lot of stuff that into that position. Rather than throwing the whole gauntlet at him, we're just building it from the ground up."

There is no short cut for Williams to getting any of this down. It's going to be a matter of calling plays, calling it in the huddle, then getting up to the line and looking at the defense, and then running the play.

“It's how you get good at anything," Johnson said. "It's repetition over and over and over again.

"You watch tape, you put yourself in that mindset. If I was here now in this situation, what would I do? That's why the situations we practice over the course of camp are going to be huge for not only me, but for also the rest of the staff and the players to figure out how my mind works so that they can play off of that accordingly. I just hope we can, in six weeks, get enough reps to feel good going into Week 1. That's the challenge."

Williams addressed presnap, and particularly play calling on his own with voice recordings. He almost sounded like someone learning a new language—which, of course, he was. As for the footwork, it can be key to improving his errant downfield passing or preventing sacks.

"It's a constant thing," Williams said about footwork. "Regardless of if we're here for the next 15 years together, it'll be something that I work on in season, out of season. I feel comfortable with it. I'm going to keep working at it. Be a smooth and be in rhythm of the plays, the concepts, play actions, under center, making everything line up and look the same but be different. I feel comfortable. I'm excited.”

Williams identified his other needs for improvement. They run the full gamut.

"The other part is being decisive, making a decision," he said. "The other part is also taking what the defense gives me. Not trying to find that big play every time and be the young cat wanting to go get that big play, big scramble play.

"Sometimes it's just the check down of the ball, the flat, the second read that may not be something more than 5 yards.”

Johnson had given Williams a homework assignment over his six weeks away after OTAs. Part of it as the footwork, part 30 to an hour a day in the playbook.

"If you can't give up an hour, 30 minutes of your day to go over the playbook, you probably shouldn't be in this position," Williams said. "It was just small things like that. Homework-wise, it was mainly the footwork.

"Then some left short throws that in OTAs I was missing. Worked on those every single day that I threw. Worked on my foot footwork every single day that I was out there.”

On Wednesday morning, he'll show what he has learned, and then Johnson will take it from there as the development of his starting quarterback continues.