Windy City Gridiron
With his 25-yard touchdown pass to Jahdae Walker against the Detroit Lions on Sunday, Chicago Bears’ second-year quarterback Caleb Williams has broken the franchise’s single-season passing yards record previously set by Erik Kramer’s 3,838 in 1995.
Heading into Week 18, Williams already held the Bears’ single-season records for fourth-quarter comebacks and game-winning drives. Before Sunday, he ranked third in franchise history with 3,730 passing yards in 16 games, narrowly trailing Kramer and Jay Cutler’s 2014 season. Now, he’s etched his place in the record books as the quarterback with the most yardage in one year.
The Bears’ 2025 season has been a year of breaking out. In their first season with Ben Johnson as their head coach, they won the NFC North and surpassed the double-digit win mark, marking Chicago’s first instance of both since 2018. Williams’ development in the second year of his NFL career has been a key aspect of that improvement, and this passing record is clear proof.
Though Williams did have one extra game to break the record — the NFL’s regular season schedule is now 17 games, as opposed to the 16-game schedule in 1995 — Williams’ team is playoff-bound, and they won more games than Kramer did in 1995 (9-7), and he had a lower interception percentage.
As the Bears’ matchup against the Lions progresses, the next benchmark for Williams is clear: can he become the first quarterback in franchise history to surpass 4,000 passing yards in a single season? Going into Sunday’s game, Chicago is the only franchise in the NFL to not have a quarterback who’s reached that total in a single season.
Stay tuned…
