Windy City Gridiron
“He’s got some burning inside of him. It’s something that I think I have, and I think he fits me.”
If you learn one thing from the latest episode of 1920 Football Drive, let it be this: the Chicago Bears' new head coach and ascending young quarterback sound like they were made for each other.
The most recent installment of the team’s behind-the-scenes show, which dropped this morning, delves a little deeper into newly hired coach Ben Johnson, who will be tasked with helping Caleb Williams reach superstardom and bring a championship parade to Chicago’s lakefront.
Some of what we heard from both Johnson and Williams are things we’ve heard before, like the second-year quarterback’s audible excitement when Ryan Poles and Kevin Warren informed him of Johnson’s hire.
But it’s still somewhat surreal to hear the coach and quarterback talk about one another and why they align so well, which feels almost unthinkable looking back on the past three years under Matt Eberflus.
“Standing on the opposite sideline from him this year, I gained a tremendous amount of respect for not only the talent level that he possesses but the type of person he is,” Johnson said of Williams.
That feeling is very mutual.
“I have friends over at Detroit — Amon Ra, couple other guys — and teams don’t function that way, offenses don’t function that way without a guy like Ben,” said Williams of his new coach and play-caller. “He’s got some burning inside of him. It’s something that I think I have, and I think he fits me. He’s a competitor. Being able to have that same kind of juice, I think, will mesh well.”
If you really want to get excited about the Bears’ on-field product, though, there are a few nuggets here to satisfy you as well.
In particular, Johnson has made it clear that the Bears offense won’t simply be a re-run of what he ran in Detroit with Jared Goff the last three years when the Lions ascended into the league’s best scoring unit.
“This is going to be ... the quarterback’s offense,” Johnson explained. “We’re going to tailor this right around Caleb Williams. It will not necessarily be what you’ve seen from me the last three years. We’re going to find out exactly what our quarterback does well, and that’s really what we’re going to anchor on.
“We want to keep defenses on edge.”
Music to our ears.
While Goff is by no means a bad quarterback — he’s become quite good, actually — the veteran could only dream of having Williams’ skill set as a passer. Tapping into that latent potential and molding it into consistent production could see Williams become a top-five quarterback in football.
With that challenge, though, comes accountability and a desire to correct mistakes that held Williams back under the previous regime, and it sounds like the two haven’t shied away from those conversations early in their relationship: “Our first time speaking, we addressed things that won’t...
