Caleb Williams reported to Chicago Bears training camp between 10 and 15 pounds lighter than his previous playing weight, but the most important change in his third NFL season may be the amount of responsibility Ben Johnson is preparing to place on his shoulders.

Williams led Chicago to the NFC North title and its first playoff victory in 15 years during his first campaign with Johnson in 2025 and established a franchise single-season record with 3,942 passing yards, both achievements that might ordinarily invite continuity rather than reconstruction. Johnson, however, believes his quarterback is ready to progress from operating the offense correctly to controlling it more completely. Last summer was devoted heavily to the detail before the snap, including delivering the call, setting the formation and making the required checks. With those foundations now established, the coach wants Williams processing coverage and delivering the ball with greater anticipation after the play begins.

“He’s had two offseasons and one training camp so far and a full season to where he’s had a lot of the similar concepts repeat for him,” Johnson explained in an interview published by the Bears. “Now we’re at the point where he’s not thinking about the play call, he’s not thinking about the cadence, the motion and all the rigmarole before the snap. Things are starting to slow down.

“What we need to see here in camp is that anticipation. Take it up a notch. I think with that, the coverage recognition gets taken up another notch. There are other ways we’re going to continue to challenge and push him, more of which are going to happen post-snap.”

Williams said the expanded brief includes identifying his options against particular coverages more quickly and carrying a wider range of checks into each play. Johnson has been direct in communicating what he expects, an approach the quarterback initially mistook for personal criticism when they began working together. The relationship has since settled around a shared ambition, with Williams saying he now accepts even the most forceful instruction without taking offence.

“I know we have a real common goal and it’s to find a way to make the Chicago Bears champions,” the QB said. “So, everything he says to me, I’ll do it at 200 per cent and won’t look back. That’s kind of how it is now. If he yells and curses at me or anything like that, I know it’s for the greater good of the team.”

Williams’s physical change is intended to complement that mental progression. He attributed the lost weight to improved sleeping and eating habits, including a rule against food after 7pm, and hopes the lighter frame will allow him to move more smoothly. Mobility was already central to his success as Williams helped the Bears recover to win seven games in which they trailed during the final two minutes last season, frequently extending plays when the designed structure broke down. Johnson has no interest in removing that improvisation, but his aim is to make the spectacular option something Williams can reserve for the moments that require it, rather than a solution needed because an earlier opportunity was missed.

“He’s got it all,” the coach said. “There’s really nothing I don’t think that he can’t do. It’s just the elite arm talent, playmaking ability, escapability. He has legs that he can hurt a defense with.

“I think the word ‘consistency’ comes up over the course of a 60-minute game or more if we need it to, where we’re playing high-level quarterback play throughout that game. You see flashes of it and yet we’re trying to tap into that where we’re just consistently delivering the ball where it needs to go, giving it to our guys around us, and then we all know that he has that ability to put on that Superman cape when the time calls for it.”

Williams is embracing the added complexity rather than viewing it as the price of last season’s success.

“The challenge that he’s giving me to be able to take the next step and progress is what I’m most excited about,” he said. “It’s going to be hard. It’s going to be tough like it is every year. That’s what you embrace, that’s what you enjoy. Because when it shows up on game days, it’s really rewarding.”