Bears coach Ben Johnson was asked at his opening press conference about the impact of Caleb Williams’ presence on his decision to take the Chicago job.
“Having a quarterback helps,” Johnson quipped.
Through much of last season, many analytics websites and numbers geeks looked at Williams and shook their heads. They wouldn’t have agreed Johnson had a quarterback.
There were plenty of poor numbers, especially early. Then Williams began surging, and it happened against some of the best competition the Bears faced—mainly their divisional opponents.
The season Williams had was summed up well by someone who had been coaching an opponent last season.
“He is a phenomenal talent that had—as many quarterbacks do—an up-and-down rookie year,” Johnson said.
There are big plans for Williams because of what is viewed as raw talent.
“Where I see my role is as a supporter of him,” Johnson said. “This offense will be calibrated with him in mind.”
Here is what they have to build on, the five best number Williams had last year that make it apparent he isn’t as bad as the 28th ranking NFL.com gave him this week, or the 23rd ranking given to him by Henry McKenna of Fox Sports this week.
“Can we all just forget about 2024?” McKenna wrote. “I genuinely think that if Williams can do that, he’ll be better off. He got worse. And he needs to start over.”
That’s not entirely true as there were positives.
Here are the five best numbers by Williams indicating he can be what Johnson anticipates.
4,443
That’s the intended air yards by Williams on throws. He ranked third in the NFL according to Stathead/Pro Football Reference.
The only QBs who had higher averaged intended air yards were Sam Darnold and Joe Burrow.
However, Williams threw only six interceptions with all of that average intended air yards and Burrow had nine while Darnold had 12.
When Williams was taking hits for being “too safe” with the ball to avoid interceptions, the criticism couldn’t have been more incorrect.