‘He’s a freak’ — Bears QB Caleb Williams has reached a turning point that should have NFL teams worried about what comes next
Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams had a stellar start to his third season in the NFL and is poised to make the kind of Year 3 jump that should have the rest of the NFL on notice.
I get it, it’s only been one game. But, Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams just put the rest of the NFL on notice with the Week 1 performance he had on Sunday against the Carolina Panthers to kick off his third NFL season.
There’s going to be the doubters, as always (looking at you PFF). But, what Williams showed in the season opener was really good stuff. He continued to make throws only he could make (like the tight window touchdown to Cole Kmet or the scramble “Jump-Man” pass to Kalif Raymond) while also showing off with his legs, and most importantly taking the easy completions when they were there. Everything we’ve been waiting to see come to life together simultaneously for Williams was on display in that game.
“I can’t (explain it). He’s a freak,” Bears head coach Ben Johnson said to Jeff Joniak on ESPN 1000. “That’s the only way you can say that. You knew that was in his body throughout middle school, high school, college. That’s what he showed his whole life. Now we really challenged him to harness that.”
Caleb Williams had that look in his eye going into Week 1, and it didn’t start Saturday night
All offseason, Johnson had been praising Williams’ command of the offense and how dialed in he was, not only at improving his own weaknesses but how he was handling leading the entire offense. It was clear a showing like this was coming sooner than later once real football started again. No one expected it this soon, except for Johnson.
“I could kind of tell (Saturday) night, we were doing our quarterback meeting one last time, and I mean, he was on top of it,” Johnson said. “Everything he was rattling out, just where (his) eyes need to be, what (he’s) thinking. I slept really well with that in mind.”
While the realization came on the final day before the season opener and the results spoke for itself on Sunday, the signs started well before Saturday night. And the signs after Sunday’s game show that Williams isn’t going to slow down.
“This is how we want to look each week,” Williams said. “And that doesn’t just happen. It happens over training camp and OTAs, it happens through the week of preparation we had. It happens by having open communication throughout the week about what works and what doesn’t.”
It was one game, but the year to year improvements were already night and day, again
Williams already took a massive step from Year 1 to Year 2 after cleaning up the sack issues and improving his deep ball accuracy. Entering Year 3, Johnson wanted to see Williams improve his overall completion percentage closer to 70 percent and the entire team do a better job in scramble drills when Williams is on the move.
As for the completion percentage, Williams got a nice reminder from future Hall of Fame quarterback Drew Brees during the week that it only takes three completions to reach that goal and a few checkdowns here and there could do the trick. As a result, Williams hit his checkdowns on Sunday and finished the game 21/29 passing (72.4 percent).
“That might have stuck with our guy a little bit,” Johnson said on Monday. “Which was cool to see. Couple checkdowns to the backs were good plays for us. There’s a couple of times where the primary’s not there and you can see him reset to the middle of the field where number two was and he ended up dotting that for five-yard gains a couple of times.”
As for scrambling, Williams completed 40.9 percent of his passes last season with 60.6 percent being on target when outside the pocket in 2025. On Sunday, he completed five of his eight attempts with a 80.0 on target percent out of the pocket. It’s only a one game sample size, but the improvement was clear on tape and in the stats.
“The scramble in general, we had a lot more production than maybe we would have had in the past,” Johnson added. “That was encouraging to see as well.”
What’s to come is going to be even better
The scariest part is that Williams wasn’t even proud of what he put out there on Sunday. His immediate post game thoughts went straight to the plays he missed, such as a potential touchdown to Colston Loveland that was just out of reach. For Williams, there’s nothing to be satisfied about and it’s an extension of how his coach thinks as well.
If Williams wasn’t already a major concern for other teams in this league, he should be after that game. The best message came from new NBC analyst and former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin during the Sunday Night Football pregame show.
“Chicago fans should be excited,” Tomlin said. “The rest of the NFC North should be very frightened by what we saw.”
