\n Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams (18) works out during practice at the team\u2019s NFL football training camp, Thursday, July 24, 2025, in Lake Forest, Ill. (AP Photo\/Erin Hooley)
\n AP\n <\/p>\n
Bears head coach Ben Johnson announced Friday that quarterback Caleb Williams and some starters won\u2019t play in Sunday\u2019s preseason opener against the Miami Dolphins at Soldier Field.<\/p>\n
Johnson said about nine players on offense and nine players on defense won\u2019t play in Sunday\u2019s game (noon, Fox). Williams will be one of those not playing.<\/p>\n
The Bears hosted a joint practice against the Dolphins on Friday at Halas Hall in Lake Forest. Johnson said the first-team offense and defense got a majority of the snaps during that practice and felt that was enough for the opener.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have in place a plan for whether it\u2019s pregame or after the game the next day, where the guys aren\u2019t playing, they\u2019re going to be getting a substantial number of reps (during Friday\u2019s joint practice) that\u2019s actually higher than those who are playing,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe talked about it as a staff. We feel very good about this plan going forward and that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson told reporters that the starters should get some snaps in games some time this preseason. Williams and the offense will next have a chance to play Aug. 17 when the Bears host the Buffalo Bills for their second preseason game. The team is set to host the Bills for another joint practice on Friday, Aug. 15.<\/p>\n
The Bears will end the preseason against at the Kansas City Chiefs on Aug. 22. But it\u2019s not likely that any starters will play in that game, which is usually reserved for players fighting for the final roster spots.<\/p>\n
Sunday could\u2019ve been an opportunity for Williams and the first-team offense to get some live-game snaps as they try to progress in Johnson\u2019s offense. But Williams told reporters Thursday that he\u2019ll do whatever Johnson asks of him and the offense.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always good to be able to go out there and get a few reps in the preseason, rather than your first time getting real live reps or anything like that or modified reps is the first game of September and you\u2019re going against the Vikings, an opponent like that,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI\u2019ll be out there whenever (Johnson) says and we\u2019ll go out there and play however many plays he tells us to play.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams (18) works out during practice at the team\u2019s NFL football training camp, Thursday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2070],"tags":[374,692,391,2493,769,7,6,767,768,9,770,771],"class_list":{"0":"post-272949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-bears","8":"tag-bears","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-bears","11":"tag-chicagobears","12":"tag-content-providers","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-pro-sports","16":"tag-shaw-local","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-sports-leagues","19":"tag-sports-types"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114995968430827954","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272949","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=272949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}