Bear Digest

The biggest change coming for Caleb Williams is the most basic

Bears coach Ben Johnson will be asking something of the Bears quarterback that he really hasn't done throughout his career much and it's this change where everything starts.

Gene Chamberlain

The Bears put Caleb Williams under center barely over a quarter of the time in 2024 and that's all going to change now.
The Bears put Caleb Williams under center barely over a quarter of the time in 2024 and that's all going to change now. / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
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One of the biggest challenges facing Caleb Williams this season in the new Ben Johnson offense is simply taking snaps.

He's going to take a much higher percentage of them from under center as opposed to shotgun than any time in is career, mainly because Ben Johnson believes in putting QBs under center.

Whether this is the best idea or not, it's what Johnson believes in using. Detroit did it 56.2% of the time last year, the highest percentage in the league according to Pro Football Network.

Lining up under center lets a team be more effective at running the football, especially on first down. Only the Ravens, Eagles and Packers ran it a higher percentage of time on first down plays than the Lions last year. All of those teams were playoff teams.

For comparison's sake, the last time the Bears won their division they lined up in shotgun the third-highest percentage at 80.5% according to NFL.com. The Chiefs led the league at this that year. To each their own, as teams have branched out in other ways since that era. And in the NFL seven seasons ago was another era ago.

"He's been predominantly a shotgun quarterback for most of his high school and college career, and so he's very comfortable there," Johnson told reporters at the NFL owners meetings. "We're going to work to see the comfort level under center and how much of that applies. We had a lot of success where I was last, that going under center for the run game did translate in play action."

Williams believes he has a strong understanding of what Johnson wants him to do to become more familiar with playing under center. It's going to be all built on the repetitions under center they give Williams during the spring and training camp.

"It's the whole thing," Williams said. "It's working, getting up to the line. It's visualizing getting up to the line, saying the cadence, being under center, controlling those things, going over the routes, concepts, the footwork in your head in the offseason so that when those times hit–it's the fourth quarter–you can't think about those things, and you can't focus on those things."

It must become more natural for Williams, so it means work after he played his college career out of the shotgun and the Bears had the 16th most plays out of the shotgun in 2024.

"It's second nature, second habit, first nature, first habit of doing that," Williams said. "Getting under there, going through the cadence, going through the huddle sequence, getting up to the line, making checks if needed or anything like that.

"It's practicing those things now, visualizing those things now. And building on those."

When Johnson described a process of tearing it down and building back up from the ground floor with their offense, this is the most clear example.

It promises to be a situation like last year's offseason work when Williams spent so much of the time trying to get down the offense's cadences, and was still having problems as late as the opener.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.