Bears coach Ben Johnson’s confidence is contagious, and he has a lot of credibility in the bank after an excellent first season, so it’s easy to buy into any plan he makes. If he says quarterback Caleb Williams is good to go for the season, who’s going to question that?
But as eager as everyone seems to be to proclaim Williams’ arrival, he’s not at that point yet.
It’s reasonable that Johnson will hold him out of the preseason opener Saturday against the Browns, but when he delivered that news Thursday, he floated the possibility that Williams could skip the entire preseason schedule.
“Do I need to see Caleb Williams in the preseason? No, I don’t,” Johnson said before practice. “I see him every single day in practice and I know what we’re going to get come the season.”
Instead, Johnson explained how he’s using guidance from the training staff about how much of a workload players should have. He might opt to get Williams those snaps exclusively in practice, especially in the upcoming joint practices with the Bengals and Titans, but said it’s “really, really fluid on how we’re handling that” and he could allot some of that work to the preseason games against those teams.
He has a plan, for example, of how many snaps he wants Williams to take next week over the course of three practices at Halas Hall, one in Cincinnati and the Aug. 22 preseason game, but hasn’t divided them up yet.
Given that the Bears remain unsettled at left tackle — Kiran Amegadjie and Jedrick Wills will share time Saturday with Braxton Jones recovering from a knee injury — and wouldn’t have much inclination to play a veteran like left guard Joe Thuney in preseason games, it’s prudent to hold Williams out of this one.
So backup Tyson Bagent will start Saturday and likely play the first half, then Johnson has third-stringer Case Keenum and undrafted rookie Miller Moss available for the second.
But at some point, there needs to be a live-action check of Williams’ progress.
When established quarterbacks like Jared Goff and Josh Allen skip the preseason, they have definitive bodies of work to justify it. Williams made incredible plays last season and led some stunning comebacks, but he’s very much a work-in-progress.
And Johnson, by the way, has been saying some version of that all offseason. He loves the highlights, but he wants more precision, more fluency in the offense and more anticipation of how defenders will react.
Johnson should want some concrete confirmation that what he’s seen in practice will be there in games. It’s true that Williams is further along than he was a year ago, when Johnson sat him in the preseason opener but played him significantly in the next two games, but the Bears’ offense has had some hiccups even at Halas Hall.
Johnson won’t get a complete assessment, including Williams’ ability to meet his requirement of completing 70% of his passes, until the real games. He would, however, get a good look at whether Williams is running pre-snap maneuvers proficiently and keeping the offense organized.
That was an issue last preseason. It appeared things were smoothing out somewhat, then Johnson was surprised by the Bears’ string of debacles in their finale against the Chiefs.
“It is disappointing to me offensively, for sure, because I thought that we’d kind of worked our way out of that,” Johnson said that night at Arrowhead Stadium.
He doesn’t want to feel that way in Week 1 against the Panthers, does he?
It’s likely that Johnson wants to reveal as little as possible to the rest of the NFL about updates to his offense and improvements by Williams, but that’s going to be evident soon enough anyway. After that Sept. 13 opener, nobody will be caught off-guard by what the Bears are running.
The real issue Johnson is weighing is whether getting a status report on Williams and the offense is worth risking an injury in a preseason game.
The Bears already have had some injuries in training camp, including a possible season-ender for safety Coby Bryant, but quarterback is the one position that coaches can almost guarantee protection because defenders aren’t allowed to touch them in practice.
Williams made so many memorable plays last season that they overshadowed how much work still lies ahead.
His touchdown pass late in the playoff game against the Rams might’ve been the best play of the NFL season. It seems to slip some minds that the Bears actually lost that game on an interception because of a miscommunication between Williams and DJ Moore and that Williams completed 22 of 41 passes other than that fourth-and-eight heave to Cole Kmet.
The Bears scored only 17 points that night, one of their worst performances of the season offensively.
For all the progress behind the scenes, that’s the last time anyone has seen the offense or Williams in a game. It’s not a good idea to go into the regular season eight months later without taking at least a quick look at where they stand.
