Ben Johnson shares his one complaint about the Bears offense — and where Caleb Williams and others can improve in 2026
The Chicago Bears head coach took particular issue with a few traits from the team’s offense looking back at the 2025 tape.
On paper, the Chicago Bears’ 2025 season was a resounding success after clinching the NFC North title and even winning a home playoff game in the first year under head coach Ben Johnson. According to the team’s head coach, it still wasn’t satisfactory in multiple areas.
For Johnson, it’s back to square one. He is no longer concerned about the praises coming his way or the pats on the back when he is walking around the city. The 2026 season is a new year and Johnson’s already taken a strong stance on the fact that there’s no building on the success of years prior.
Having continuity on the staff and a lot of returning faces will certainly help speed up that process this time around, but there’s clear areas Johnson is eager to improve when it comes to the offensive side of the ball specifically and quarterback Caleb Williams.
Ben Johnson lays out where Caleb Williams and the Bears offense can get better in 2026
One thing Johnson learned during the 2026 season is how much of an advantage having a quarterback like Caleb Williams can be for an offense.
“That’s the beauty of Caleb Williams,” Johnson told reporters at the NFL Annual Meeting. “It’s a little bit unpredictable. And so, as structured as we can be sometimes, I think he does a great job of just his natural reaction being a very difficult thing to defend.”
Williams’ play-making ability was on display all season long. If you took a vacuum down the opposing sideline at Soldier Field after every game, you could literally pull out hairs that came from opposing defensive coaches that were being tasked with containing the Bears franchise quarterback.
At the same time, the Bears have plenty to clean up when it comes to Williams and the offense after Johnson watched the tape back from the 2025 season, and not all of it has to do with No. 18.
“I’m actually not very happy with us as an offensive staff and our ability to get the primary receiver open,” Johnson explained. “I don’t think it happened at a high enough clip, and so we have to do a better job in our game-planning process. I put a lot of that on myself of making sure that we are doing that. And then that’s where Caleb comes in handy is he can bail us out when we are wrong, which we’re going to be wrong each and every game. I’m going to miss-time some calls or they’re going to throw something at us that we weren’t prepared for. That’s on him and his athletic ability to bail us out.”
At times, Williams was able to do that by evading the pressure and scrambling for a first down, or by finding an open player down the field to throw to. More times than not, however, even Williams’ heroics weren’t enough to make up for the glaring mistakes.
Among the 24 quarterbacks with 150+ dropbacks under pressure, Williams’ 40.0 completion percentage ranked 24th. Outside the pocket, Williams’ 40.5 completion percentage ranked last among quarterbacks with 50 such attempts, with a 60.2 on-target percentage.
Not all of it was Williams’ fault. On plays deemed a “broken play” the Bears led the NFL with six drops, according to Sports Info Solutions. Fortunately, four of those drops belonged to players not set to return in 2026, but the overall drops were still a prevalent issue throughout the season even among the players that are returning.
“Naturally, I think we got to get better when we extend plays, capitalizing on those as well,” Johnson added. “Our scramble tape was not very good and I think that’s something that Caleb can really sink into. Just with his accuracy, with our ability to catch the ball, with our ability to separate down the field. I think we can make a huge jump there as well.”
It’s going to have to be a collaborative effort from everyone, including the coaching staff. Which is why the Bears are prepared to strip everything back down to the foundation this offseason and begin the offseason process working on the fundamentals.
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