Caleb Williams missed the past three games of the season with a hamstring injury. People weren’t sure what to expect from the Chicago Bears‘ quarterback. He could be forgiven for looking a little rusty. Going on the road against the Atlanta Falcons is a tough first assignment. Williams would be forgiven for having a slightly off game. Apparently, someone forgot to tell him that. Not only did he throw for over 300 yards in the game, but he also completed his first 12 passes in a row, along with a touchdown on the opening drive.
In fact, it was the most efficient game of his career. Williams finished 30-of-36 on the afternoon, good for an 83.33 completion percentage. Four of those passes were labeled as throwaways, too. That means only two of his passes were true incompletions all day. That performance did something that nobody could have expected. It now puts Williams at #1 in the NFL with a 72.5% completion rate. Don’t forget, just a season ago, he was dead last among all starters at 58.1%.
Caleb Williams is chasing unseen NFL history.
One fundamental truth about football is that you rarely see drastic swings in certain stat categories when it comes to quarterbacks. If somebody hovers around 60-63% completion percentage, that is typically where they stay. The same is true for sacks. Some quarterbacks just tend to take them more often than others because of their play style. Guys don’t magically become great at avoiding them. Yet people are watching Williams in the process of doing both.
In 2024, he had a pressure-to-sack ratio of 28.2%. In other words, 28.2% of the times he was pressured resulted in a sack. That was dead last in the NFL. Last season, that number dropped to 8.6%, the #1 mark in the league. He’d gone from worst to first in a category where that wasn’t supposed to be possible. Now Caleb Williams is doing it again. After having the worst completion percentage last year, he is on pace to finish #1 in 2026. Keep in mind that no quarterback has managed this feat. The closest anybody ever came was Josh Allen in 2020, going from 58.8% to 69.2%. That put him at 4th in the league.
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Nothing about this is normal.
Quarterbacks don’t improve to this extent. What Williams is doing is an anomaly. Completely unheard of in the context of quarterback development. It is a testament to the significant work he’s done to improve his mastery of the offense and learn how to play the position in a more traditional style. Head coach Ben Johnson also deserves credit for having a plan on how to get him there. He’s made the completion percentage thing a priority from the beginning. He knows a 70% rate is a winning formula.
Don’t believe it? The Bears are now 5-2 in games where Williams has cracked that mark. They would be 6-1 if not for a blocked field goal in Green Bay. It seems the quarterback is finally starting to understand the importance and is making a conscious effort not to throw away easy opportunities. It might not always be flashy, but it certainly is effective. Now Williams is pushing towards another piece of NFL history.
