Windy City Gridiron
The Bears coaching staff has laid out their goals for quarterback Caleb Williams during training camp and preseason in hopes that it translates on the field for the 2025 season.
The Chicago Bears had their first week of training camp practices this past week. With that, the staff has started to lay the groundwork for the team’s chemistry. Head Coach Ben Johnson and his assistant coaches have begun to identify and work out any kinks for this new roster in the early practices of training camp. They’ve also started to set their expectations and goals for their players, such as dependability and consistency. Johnson, and even Caleb Williams himself, have set some lofty goals for Williams during training camp and preseason in hopes that it translates on the field for Williams as he enters his sophomore season as the Bears’ starting quarterback.
During a Bears press conference on Tuesday, Johnson stated that he has set a goal for Williams this upcoming season “to complete 70% of his balls.” Last season, Williams completed 62.5% of his passes, making this goal for Williams a tall order. Johnson acknowledges that this is a lofty goal but claims, “it’s one we’re going to strive for.”
However, to ensure Williams meets this goal, the coaching staff has placed an emphasis on tracking Williams’ pass completion percentage each day of camp. On Friday, Offensive Coordinator Declan Doyle told the media, “We track everything…The biggest thing is, you track it and give it to him. ‘Hey, we’re below our standard right now.’ It’s something that we’ll track throughout camp. Obviously that’s our benchmark, our goal, but that’s the biggest thing. We have to track all of it, and make sure our players are aware of what we’re going to ask of them.”
The team has set the baseline to gauge Williams’ performance as “above or below championship standards.” While the coaches are placing ambitious goals on Williams during camp and the season ahead, it seems that they are setting him up for success by keeping him accountable and tracking his performance daily these next six weeks.
Both Johnson and Doyle have described a 11-on-11 period during practice that they place intentional pressure on offense from the defense on every snap. They refer to this as the “wake-up” period. On Friday, Doyle explains, “[setting up pressure on Williams], that’s very intentional. That’s trying to get our defensive pressures in against some of the stuff we’re going to do offensively…the quarterback operating, getting the offense on the same page as far as checking plays, checking protections, things like that…that’s all a part of the scripted practice.”
Albert Breer stated Friday, per Sports Illustrated, the reasoning for “the volume [Williams is] getting to see from the defense” is so he can “apply more of the offense to what he’s seeing from an opponent”, claiming that the Bears coaching staff’s idea was to have Williams “drinking from a firehose in the spring,...
