This is the third time in 12 years the Bears will have the same head coach, offensive play-caller and starting quarterback working together as they did the year before.
They should act like it.
The team’s first preseason game is less than two weeks away. If history is any indication, quarterback Caleb Williams won’t play in it. If common sense has any say, the same will be true of the Bears’ next two exhibition games.
Williams was seemingly everywhere this offseason, from hype lists to video game covers. Bears fans should hope the opposite is true this preseason.
There’s no reason to play Williams in games. That’s not a declaration that Williams is a finished product. Far from it — the Bears have a specific list of traits they absolutely need him to improve before the Sept. 13 opener in Charlotte, and certainly before they decide to play him like a franchise quarterback. Rather, holding Williams out of preseason games would be the reward for the quarterback and coach Ben Johnson establishing their on-field chemistry last year. Risking injury for the sake of more reps just doesn’t make sense.
Johnson wasn’t ready to lay out his game plan Monday for the Bears’ Aug. 15 preseason opener against the Browns at Soldier Field. But he didn’t commit to playing Williams, or any of his starters, in the opener.
The stretching portion before the game might be something different. Of course, there are no defenders trying to rip you to the ground then.
“I think it’s probably always good to at least go through the warmup procedure to where Game 1’s not the first time at doing that,” Johnson said before Monday’s practice. “So there’s a lot of merit in that regard, and we’ll see what it looks like. But we haven’t made a determination yet.”
The schedule seems to indicate otherwise. The Bears have a practice scheduled for the day after their first preseason game, the same way they did last year. Williams didn’t play the first preseason game in 2025, and neither did the majority of the Bears’ starters.
The next two preseason games — Aug. 22 in Cincinnati and Aug. 29 in Nashville — each come two days after a joint practice. Johnson figures to put more stock in practices against the Bengals and Titans, given that he’d have more control over the injury risk than in a game,
“We need all these guys to be as healthy as we possibly can going into the season because it’s a long year,” Johnson said. “But at the same time, we want to make sure that we’re prepped and we’re ready also. We’re looking at numbers. We got sports science data, the number of reps we’re getting, the quality of the reps that we’re getting, it all goes into it.”
The Bears played Williams in 14 snaps in the second preseason game last year and 28 in Game 3. But that was his first time working with Johnson, and he was still in the process of learning not only the playbook, but the presnap protocol. He knows both this year.
Johnson has stressed toughness since his arrival, but that’s built on practice fields, not random Saturdays in August The Bears will scrimmage during training camp and figure to have at least one repeat of last year’s grueling, violet showdown practices. That should be enough.
The Bears have been here before. Entering his second season with Mitch Trubisky, coach Matt Nagy decided to keep him on ice in the preseason. He didn’t throw a single pass. The Bears were beaten by the Packers in an ugly Week 1 and stumbled through 2019. Nagy, a year later, said he regretted not playing Trubisky more.
Williams isn’t Trubisky — at least the Bears hope not. And they hope Johnson has a staying power than Nagy never found.
They can’t decide Williams’ playing time this preseason based on the ghosts of quarterbacks past. Johnson and Williams, after all, are trying to break that mold.
“We’ll be smart,” Johnson said.