Windy City Gridiron
Heading into the 2026 NFL season, expectations for the Chicago Bears have been elevated across the board. Following the excitement of last season’s playoff run that saw the team defeat the rival Green Bay Packers in the wild card round en route to an overtime loss to the Los Angeles Rams, there’s optimism that Ben Johnson’s club can take another step forward. Much of that optimism, unsurprisingly, comes from the trajectory of 3rd year quarterback (and Madden 27 cover star) Caleb Williams, who was responsible for several of the top plays in the entire league last year. Still, as impressive as the talent Williams was able to showcase in Johnson’s offense last season was, there are many that feel he’s left a lot of potential untapped.
That brings us to the vampiric topic that won’t die until Caleb Williams takes it out himself with a wooden stake to the heart: passing accuracy. To be fair, neither Caleb nor Ben Johnson seem to be backing down from this obvious criticism of Williams’ game. Johnson famously set the goal for the Bears’ quarterback’s completion percentage at 70% before the start of the season last year and doubled down at the start of OTAs this offseason. Williams has been transparent about his need to improve in this area in particular as well, after registering completion percentages of 62% and 58% in his rookie and sophomore outings, respectively.
While the head coach and quarterback are unlikely to publicly put responsibility for these numbers on anyone other than themselves, the pass catchers play an obviously crucial role as well. This has been pointed out ad nauseum by Williams’ defenders, who will note several plays from last season that ended in a dropped pass. The good news for that crowd is they’ve got some support in the form of NFL Analyst Warren Sharp who shared a ranking of the teams most impacted by “receiver drops, [loss of] control at the ground, [not getting] both feet inbounds [when likely], [falling] down, and a couple other smaller instances” that he’s quantified under the umbrella term “receiver error”:
The Bears (and Caleb Williams, who accounted for all but 6 pass attempts for Chicago last season) come in at the 6th spot in this ranking. This should give some credence to what the eye test showed on the field.
Again, nobody inside Halas Hall seems to be making excuses, but most Bears fans are likely not shocked by this information from Sharp. After all, we all know how impactful such receiver errors can be. They can be the difference between a solid overall season statistically and finally breaking through the 4,000-yard milestone that has eluded every quarterback to take the field for Chicago. It’ll take a concerted effort from passer, receivers, and play-caller alike to remove this variable from the equation in the year ahead. If they can do that, it’ll likely spell success for more than just Caleb – just look at the teams ranked dead last if you...
