Chicago Bears urge Caleb Williams to improve ‘body language,’ pre-snap procedure

The Chicago Bears‘ new coaching staff wants to see more fire out of Caleb Williams during his second NFL season, a precursor to expected improvements offensively in 2025, according to NFL reporter Albert Breer. Williams, who has not spoken to reporters during OTAs or addressed recent reports of hoping to avoid the Bears in the 2024 NFL Draft, is reportedly receptive to instruction during the offseason program.

“There were two areas where the coaches wanted improvement from Williams,” Breer reports. “Both related to how he carried himself as the quarterback, based on what the 2024 season showed. One was body language. The other was pre-snap procedure.

“On the former, while the coaches understood the beating he took, they showed film to emphasize how he’d been slow to pull himself up off the ground. It was a long year. People got fired in-season. And in adverse circumstances, the staff explained, having a quarterback who was rolling with the punches would go a long way. On the latter, there was a smattering of small things—like on the first play of one game, he turned to his left, thinking the motion was coming, when it was actually coming from the right—that needed to be cleaned up.”

Williams is one of the NFL’s second-year quarterbacks expected to take a major leap forward given coach Ben Johnson‘s previous success level as offensive play-caller for the Detroit Lions. Williams threw for 3,541 yards and 20 touchdowns last season with a 62.5% completion rate, but was sacked a league-leading 68 times and was often slow to pick himself off the turf and return to the huddle.

Williams showed maturity as a rookie with media and rarely placed the blame on his offensive line. Instead, there were times Williams held onto the football for too long when trying to extend a play or was indecisive with his reads.

“There’s been a stupid — excuse my language — but a stupid idea behind my offensive linemen,” Williams said in January prior to his team’s final game of his first season. “The connotation behind my offensive line has been annoying and frustrating because they work their tail off to be able to go out there. The negative connotation behind them, they come in and work their butt off each day, each week.

“I’ve taken sacks, yes. And a good amount have been on me, whether it’s small things of getting the ball out of my hands and maybe dirting it, not trying to find the perfect route, perfect play, maybe it’s just throwing it out of bounds, dirting it, finding the checkdown faster. And the other one is not trying to make plays all the time.”