Caleb Williams can hurt the Raiders in multiple ways in Week 4 and Ben Johnson is ready to start taking full advantage of it
His mobility can be a big factor in this offense.
Fresh of winning NFC Offensive Player of the Week for his four touchdown, zero turnover, performance in Week 3, Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams is only focused on one thing: the next game on the schedule.
“I tried to recognize him in front of the group and he wasn’t having it,” head coach Ben Johnson said to reporters on Wednesday. “Very stoic. He’s already on to the next game.
Next up on the schedule? The Bears will travel to Las Vegas to take on the Raiders looking to earn the team’s first road win of the season and get back to .500. In the meantime, the Bears’ offense is coming off it’s best performance led by Williams’ play and there’s still more Johnson knows he can unlock in Williams’ game.
Caleb Williams’ rushing ability can start being a real factor for the Bears’ offense
“It’s fun,” Johnson said about Williams’ mobility. “I don’t have to be perfect as a play-caller. I’ve always tried to be that where you get the primary receiver open the majority of the time and I don’t feel that necessity anymore. He has a way of, if No. 1’s open, he’ll take it.”
“We’re getting to where he’s progressing to 2 and 3, but if we need to escape or extend, yeah, it’s his natural playmaking and that’s the balance we want to strike. It changes every week what that balance looks like, but I think we’re really finding out a lot about each other because he’s learning what my expectation is as well. But I think he’s doing a good job understanding when it breaks down a little bit what he can do to ad lib.”
Williams enters Week 4 with the seventh-most rushing yards (97) among all quarterbacks, some of which have been designed carries and some have been nifty scrambles to keep a play alive and turn it into a positive gain. It’s not something that necessarily new in his game either.
In 2024, Williams broke the Bears’ rookie QB rushing yard record with 489 yards on the ground, passing the previous record set by Justin Fields in 2021 (420). Now, Williams is certainly not the runner Fields was with the Bears, as evidenced by Fields’ 1,143 rushing yards in 2022. But, even going back to college, Williams used his mobility to his advantage.
During his college career at USC and Oklahoma, Williams rushed for 27 touchdowns including 10+ rushing touchdowns in each of his final two seasons at USC. Someone that knows a lot about his college days firsthand is current Raiders head coach Pete Carroll, a fellow USC legend that will be going up against the Bears’ QB on Sunday.
“I did watch him a lot [at USC] and had a chance to check him out,” Carroll told reporters. “He’s a very, very special athlete and he’s got great sense, great awareness about throwing the football and running the football. He’ll be a prolific scrambler, and by the time we check out his years, he’s really good at it and throws really well on the run, too… Caleb can do whatever you want him to do, so he’s a very dangerous player to play against.”
Running the football isn’t Williams’ go-to move by any means. He wants to spread the football around and hurt you with his arm first. And the growth he’s made working with Johnson when it comes to his footwork, working through reads, and playing in the pocket has made him into a well rounded player.
Having the ability to play within the pocket, throw on the run, or takeoff for a first down, gives the Raiders three different factors to prepare against and three different ways Johnson can scheme plays up for his quarterback to attack.
“I think he saw when he plays on time he’s trusting the hitches within his drops and we can be an explosive offense that way,” Johnson said. “There’s a lot of ways that Caleb Williams can hurt you and like I said when we have pass protection like we had (in Week 3), that certainly helps.”
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