PALM BEACH, Fla. — Bears quarterback Caleb Williams will be uncomfortable when he reports to Halas Hall for offseason workouts next week.
That’s Ben Johnson’s plan, at least.
“There’s a degree of Caleb being challenged a little bit more, I think,” the Bears’ new coach told the Sun-Times on Monday at the NFL’s annual meeting. “Outside of his comfort zone.”
That includes which concepts Johnson installs — down to where the quarterback lines up. Williams has been a shotgun quarterback practically his whole career, from Gonzaga College Prep to Oklahoma to USC and then to last year’s Bears team. The Bears ran 754 plays out of the shotgun last year, the 14th-most in the NFL.
That will change. The Lions were in the shotgun 492 times with Johnson as offensive coordinator last year, the fewest in the league.
“We might ask him to go under center a little bit more than what he’s done in his past,” Johnson said. “I do think there needs to be a healthy dialogue between both of us, regardless of his experience level — I need to know what he feels really good about, particularly on game day.
“But certainly in the springtime, in training camp, we’re going to get him outside of what he’s done really well and see how far we can push him in another direction.”
Williams played for three different offensive coordinators last year, and none for more than nine games — Shane Waldron, Thomas Brown and Chris Beatty. The Bears spent dearly to hire Johnson, the most coveted play-caller on the head-coaching market, to give Williams a steady influence.
“Last year was a little bit up and down for him,” Johnson said. “Everything I’ve seen so far is that he has been a very coachable individual. He just wants to soak in knowledge. And so that’s what I’m most encouraged about, is to see him show up. Because with the players back [at Halas Hall] next week, I think he’ll show up early. He’ll have his notebook ready to go, and he just wants to soak in a lot of information. And that’s what I’m really looking forward to.”
With the collective bargaining agreement keeping players from lingering at Halas Hall, Johnson has spent the last 10 weeks since he was hired talking to general manager Ryan Poles, players and staff about what went wrong during the Bears’ disastrous 5-12 season. His verdict: after last year’s circus, Bears players crave consistency.
“There can be clear, consistent communication,” Johnson said. “We’re going to have structure for these players, and, really, we’re going to … coach with consistency. Those are the big things for us.”
Johnson has built a staff, hiring, among others, Declan Doyle as his offensive coordinator, former Ohio State star J.T. Barrett as his quarterbacks coach and former Chiefs coordinator Eric Bieniemy as his running backs coach. He’s explained the tenets of his playbook so they can help teach it to the players when they arrive.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Johnson said. “The two months have gone fast, but this is where the fun starts.”
Three years ago, Johnson crafted his Lions playbook during a long offseason weekend spent inside the team’s facility with veteran quarterback Jared Goff. Johnson’s family was out of town and Goff decided to ditch a guy’s trip to Las Vegas. Eight hours a day for three days, the two watched videos, took notes and drew up plays. Johnson, a computer wiz, created playbook slides from scratch.
Over Chick-fil-A, Goff helped Johnson understand Sean McVay’s system from his Rams days, while Johnson quizzed his quarterback on which plays he liked to run best.
“It helped me grow and helped me learn,” Johnson said. “I think the more communication you can have between the play caller and the quarterback, the better it gets in terms of what’s the vision for the offense, what’s the intent of the play. That was just the start of it.”
It will continue with Williams, though not in the same way — he has only 17 NFL games to his name. The two will have less of Williams’ experience to lean on — but more of Johnson’s.
“It’s not going to be, necessarily, linear growth,” he said. “There’s going to be gains, and we’re going to drop down, we’re going to have a bad game. And our whole thing is, as a coaching staff, is going to be talking to [Williams] about, ‘Hey, let’s not have one bad play lead into another bad play. Let’s not have one bad game lead into another bad game.’ Because that’s where you fall into a spiral, and it’s hard to get out of that.
“So each play is its own entity. Each game’s its own entity. And how we can just give the best version of ourselves for each one of those.”
