Ben Johnson forces Caleb Williams to adapt fast in wake-up practice drills
The Chicago Bears’ new head coach is making his players “comfortable with being uncomfortable”, starting with unusually intense drills for his quarterback.
No second-year quarterback seems to have gotten off to a worse start than Chicago Bears’ Caleb Williams, who’s thrown enough interceptions in their first week of training camp to worry new head coach Ben Johnson.
🚨🚨 TRENDING #Bears Caleb Williams with back to back INTs at Bears training camp while learning the Ben Johnson offense. #DaBears #nfl pic.twitter.com/H3RX8RhpXi
— NFL Rumors (@nflrums) July 25, 2025
And if Williams is uncomfortable, that’s the whole point.
Bears’ shocking new practice strategy for Williams
Back in January, when Johnson was introduced as the Bears’ new head coach, he told his players to “get comfortable with being uncomfortable”, and he’s proving now that he meant that.
Johnson is using an aggressive, high-pressure approach in training camp to accelerate Caleb Williams’ development. Offensive coordinator Declan Doyle revealed that the team is intentionally scripting defensive pressure early in practices to make Williams adapt quickly at the line of scrimmage.
This includes forcing him to adjust protections, call audibles, and manage presnap procedures (“P.S.P.”) against live 11-on-11 pressure situations.
Caleb Williams explaining how learning Ben Johnson’s scheme will be a multi-year process pic.twitter.com/f2WdKhb8VK
— Kev 🥈 (@2KEVlN) July 26, 2025
Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer reported that this daily “wake-up period” is part of Johnson’s strategy to immerse Williams in complexity early before narrowing down the offense to fit his strengths.
“The idea was to have him drinking from a firehose in the spring, and keep the load on him to start camp, and then begin to narrow the offense down to what Johnson, OC Declan Doyle, and the staff think he does best,” wrote Breer. “Getting there is just a process (and we’ll have more on it in the Monday takeaways).”
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