Windy City Gridiron
As of this writing, Caleb Williams has a completion percentage of only 59.2% in 2025.
Among the 34 qualified quarterbacks by Pro Football Reference, it’s the second-lowest completion rate in the NFL. Only J.J. McCarthy has a lower completion percentage than Williams coming out of Week 12, and it’s a far cry from the 70% completion percentage goal that Bears head coach Ben Johnson gave the second-year QB going into the season.
Let’s dig a little bit deeper into that. To the naked eye, that completion percentage isn’t very good at all. Certainly, there are some times on tape where Williams can airmail his passes. I’d argue there are a handful of throws a game where he just outright misses open targets with inaccurate throws.
But is Caleb’s inaccuracy as big of an issue as his completion percentage might indicate?
Among the top 32 quarterbacks in the NFL in drop backs — taking the player on each team with the most passing attempts this season — Williams has the sixth-highest depth of target average at 9.2 yards, per PFF. Coincidentally, in first place in that average is J.J. McCarthy, who has a brutal 54.1% completion percentage but has the most difficult task per average throw with a 10.1 yards depth average.
That’s not to entirely excuse Williams’ completion percentage. Ahead of him in the ADOT average rankings are the likes of Sam Darnold and Drake Maye, both of whom rank in the top four in the NFL in completion percentage. But it does provide some insight into why his completion percentage is low: he’s being asked to execute more difficult tasks than the average NFL quarterback.
In particular, the Bears are asking a lot from him to move the ball down the field. Going into Week 13, he has thrown 51 passes that have traveled beyond 20 air yards past the line of scrimmage. Only Bo Nix and Patrick Mahomes have thrown more deep balls this season. Of the 18 starting quarterbacks who have started in every game their respective team has played, Williams has the second-highest percentage of deep ball usage behind only Jalen Hurts.
When he’s being tasked with executing down the field, the Bears have seen tremendous efficiency on the deep ball. Here’s where Williams ranks in the NFL among quarterbacks on deep throws:
Williams also has a 4.2% “big time throw” percentage, which ranks 15th in the league. That’s not incredible, but it certainly isn’t bad, either.
The adjusted completion percentage is arguably more telling than his actual completion percentage on the deep ball, which ranks just 24th at 35.3%. Reason being: the adjusted completion percentage accounts for dropped passes and throwaways. Caleb has had 21.7% of his deep passes on target yet outright dropped by his receivers, which is the fourth-highest rate in the NFL. When you’re throwing the deep ball as often as he...
