The Bears enter a pivotal 2025 season hoping to see early returns on the hiring of offensive guru Ben Johnson as head coach to oversee the development of Caleb Williams. The first pick in the 2024 NFL draft, Williams demonstrated all sorts of athletic traits that foretell a successful NFL career in his rookie season— but there were issues, the most obvious to viewers being Williams's body language.
Like many young QBs, Williams struggled to mask his frustration when things weren't going well. With Chicago finishing 5-12 and firing multiple members of the coaching staff before December, things often did not go well, which meant there were several examples of Williams slumping in disappointment as his team lost over and over.
It isn't the biggest problem in the world and the franchise would undoubtedly prefer Williams care too much than too little. But it is still a problem in the eyes of his new head coach. In an ESPN profile published on Thursday, Johnson acknowledged it was something he worked on with his new protege and shared how the Bears want Williams to get better in the body language arena.
"It's like, do we really want to ... is this what we want to look like or not?" Johnson said to ESPN's Courtney Cronin. "We come to an agreement, no it's not. OK, we learn from it, we move on to the next thing. We don't want to be a 'palms-up team' where we're questioning everything. No, no, no; to me that's a little bit of a sign of weakness. We don't want to [see] that from anybody on the team."
Keeping their head on straight is a big key to success for NFL quarterbacks. They're the leaders on the field and teammates take their cues from how they act. Nobody is perfect in that realm and keeping calm 100% of the time isn't necessary for success; Tom Brady, after all, was famous for his furious sideline outbursts when he and his teammates were not playing well. But it is clearly important to Johnson that Williams looks like he's on the same page as everybody else when on the field and that means keeping the shoulder shrugs to a minimum.
One of several changes to keep an eye on in Chicago as Williams embarks on his second NFL season.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Ben Johnson Shares How Bears Addressed Body Language Issues With Caleb Williams.
