{"id":105454,"date":"2025-06-05T07:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T07:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/105454\/"},"modified":"2025-06-05T07:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T07:58:10","slug":"ben-johnson-repetition-will-lead-to-precision-for-caleb-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/105454\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Johnson: Repetition will lead to precision for Caleb Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAKE FOREST, Ill. (WGN<\/a>) \u2014 On the second day media could lay their eyes on Chicago Bears mandatory minicamp, Ben Johnson\u2019s attention to detail was on full display, and the new Bears head coach offered some insight on the progress Caleb Williams has made.<\/p>\n

From the get-go, Johnson\u2019s command of Bears practice this offseason has been a stark departure from how some of his predecessors have handled business. Any time a player has been caught out of position, running the wrong route or blocking the wrong man, he\u2019s blown the play dead and had everyone run it back from the beginning.<\/p>\n

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Johnson was asked if that\u2019s a trait he\u2019s inherited from past head coaches he\u2019s worked under\u2014whether it be Dan Campbell in Detroit, or Joe Philbin and Adam Gase in Miami. From his perspective, the trait has developed more from the football he\u2019s seen played on the field, as opposed to learning from his superiors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. I\u2019ve probably seen more bad football than I\u2019ve seen good football over my time in this league,\u201d Johnson said with a laugh. \u201cIt\u2019s trying not to make the same mistakes as the people I\u2019ve been around, maybe in the past, that I perceived as mistakes. I don\u2019t think you can let things slide.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think offensive football is about precision. It\u2019s a constant communication of what that should look like. When they hit the mark, we love them up, and when we fall short, then we have to let them know so that we get it better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yesterday at Bears minicamp \u2013 \u2018That\u2019s football\u2019: Kmet excited for him and Loveland to push each other, sets lofty goals for 2025 <\/a><\/p>\n

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Wednesday\u2019s action at Halas Hall saw Johnson and his staff work everything from situational drills to unscripted plays, with 2- and 4-minute drills sprinkled in between. \u201cIt felt more like football,\u201d according to Johnson, who said they\u2019ll have to review the tape afterward to see who\u2019s outperforming the pack.<\/p>\n

At this point in the offseason, Johnson described the defense as the better unit when going head-to-head with the offense\u2014a theme that was also common last year under Matt Eberflus\u2014but the offense and Williams were able to \u201cstack some plays\u201d Wednesday that highlighted the type of quarterback Johnson thinks he can become.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know you haven\u2019t been to every single OTA so far, but I would say the defense has gotten the better of the offense more often than not in all of those two-minute [situations], whether it\u2019s end-of-half or end-of-game,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cSo, it was good to see the offense stack a few plays together. That\u2019s a very tough situation. I think it was 90-plus yards in under a minute with no timeouts, so it was cool to see them stack some plays.<\/p>\n

\u201cCaleb, what we thought about him was, when the lights are bright, that he was going to show up. It felt like the game slowed down a little bit for him, and he was able to just go out and find an open guy and get a completion. That was good to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

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At face value, Williams\u2019 rookie stat line was quality, compared to the average Bears quarterback over the decades. The former USC Trojan finished last season 351-562 (62.5%) for 3,541 yards and 20 TD passes to just six interceptions.<\/p>\n

Where he struggled was deep ball accuracy and taking sacks\u2014the latter not being entirely his fault though.<\/p>\n

According to Pro Football Focus<\/a>, Williams finished second-to-last among NFL quarterbacks in deep ball completion percentage (passes that traveled 20-plus air yards) at 26.7%, ahead of only the Indianapolis Colts\u2019 Anthony Richardson (26.0%), among QBs who hit the 50% threshold for deep pass attempts.<\/p>\n

Williams\u2019 deep ball accuracy heading into next season was a topic of conversation on Wednesday. It\u2019s something Johnson believes comes with constant reps, and has experience helping with in years past.<\/p>\n

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\u201cRepetition. Repetition, repetition,\u201d Johnson said of how to improve Williams\u2019 deep ball accuracy. \u201cI had that narrative in Miami when we drafted [Ryan] Tannehill in 2012, 2013. He struggled with the deep ball and you just keep focusing on it, you get close with your receivers. It doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re throwing the ball deep, throwing it short, but it takes some time to develop chemistry.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you get that done, then, usually, it becomes clockwork after that. The more repetitions that we get as a unit, the better off we\u2019re going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams\u2019 last season in college suggests he\u2019s capable of finding his deep ball accuracy in the NFL too. In 2023, he finished fifth in deep ball completion percentage among FBS quarterbacks with at least 50 deep passes (53%) and second among the same group with 20.3 yards per deep attempt.<\/p>\n

A deep ball completion percentage of 53% would have ranked second in the NFL last year, behind the Pittsburgh Steelers\u2019 Russell Wilson (54%).<\/p>\n

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As for the sacks, it\u2019s a stat that\u2019s been well noted. Williams was the NFL\u2019s most sacked QB last year at 68, a number that only David Carr exceeded in 2002 with 76 (in one less game played).<\/p>\n

The best way to avoid sacks is to get the ball out quicker than the defense can get off the line of scrimmage. In order to do that, Johnson said he and Williams will \u201cneed to see the play the exactly the same\u201d and execute faster than he did last season, which is still a work in progress.<\/p>\n

ESPN\u2019s Courtney Cronin<\/a> referenced a specific 7-on-7 play where Williams hit running back Roschon Johnson in the flat. According to Johnson, Williams was late and \u201cneeds to get there faster.\u201d<\/p>\n

But at the same time, that play isn\u2019t representative of where Williams is at as a whole, but rather just an example of him still having room to grow. It\u2019s a challenge Johnson said his young QB has handled admirably.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAwesome. He\u2019s doing a great job. He\u2019s very coachable,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cIt\u2019s like anything, it\u2019s a new play so, we\u2019re just communicating what the expectations are and we want to see it show up on the tape.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked if today was the best he\u2019s seen Williams look so far this offseason, Johnson deferred to the tape and left a weather-themed pun as food for thought.<\/p>\n

\u201cHard to say. You have to look at the tape to be sure about that, but it certainly felt like he had some good moments in there. Maybe we need just a little bit of drizzle every day and we\u2019ll pull out the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGN-TV. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAKE FOREST, Ill. (WGN) \u2014 On the second day media could lay their eyes on Chicago Bears mandatory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2070],"tags":[374,1035,1036,692,391,2493,146,7,392,216,6,57,4077,572],"class_list":{"0":"post-105454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-bears","8":"tag-bears","9":"tag-ben-johnson","10":"tag-caleb-williams","11":"tag-chicago","12":"tag-chicago-bears","13":"tag-chicagobears","14":"tag-detroit","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-indianapolis-colts","17":"tag-miami","18":"tag-nfl","19":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","20":"tag-roschon-johnson","21":"tag-russell-wilson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114629699778094060","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}