Bears

So far, Bears QB Caleb Williams and the new-look offense under HC Ben Johnson have not been turning many heads in training camp, which has left fans in Chicago uneasy given the long history of lofty promises and mediocre results on that side of the ball. However, Johnson explained that he’s making it a point to throw as many challenging situations at Williams as possible early in camp to see what he’s able to handle. Johnson remains encouraged by the potential he sees in the former No. 1 pick.

“I saw a guy with immense potential. Every week he made throws that made you drop your jaw a little bit. Hell, I experienced it when I was standing on the sideline when he played against us,” Johnson said via Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer. “But what you also see is a lack of anticipation at times, which — that comes with reps — you gotta do things over and over again. That’s not abnormal for a rookie quarterback.

“And it’s some of the presnap stuff he could improve on, the shifts, the motions. There were times when his eyes weren’t quite in the right spot. Even though I hadn’t been in the building, you kind of know where he should be looking and it wasn’t that way. That’s where we’ve been pretty hard on him since we’ve been in the building.”

Johnson plans to start dialing in and building the offense around the things Williams does well in a couple of weeks, by which point the hope is Williams will have banked some valuable experiences and made real progress in the areas the team has spotlighted as needing growth.

“Right now, Ben’s just testing to see, how much can I give this kid, what is the retention level, how much in the presnap operation can he handle in terms of the motions and making those calls at the line of scrimmage, the protections,” Bears GM Ryan Poles said. “Going back to last year, there’s some things he never did in college that’s a part of this game, that a lot of rookies have to go through. There’s a lot of verbiage, a lot of things at the line of scrimmage. It’s just getting those things down. This is a different system, but I’ve seen a huge improvement from last year to this year just in terms of the operation. Ben’s system, there’s a lot there. So I think it’s just overload him now, figure out what he can do, and go from there. And then build it year after year after year.”

Lions

Lions OC John Morton played wide receiver for the Packers when Jon Gruden was their WR coach, and Morton’s first job as an assistant coach was for Gruden on the Raiders. Now, Gruden is a presence at Lions’ training camp to help Morton as much as he can.

“That’s what this business is all about, I had a lot of people help me,” Gruden told...