Caleb Williams was outstanding last season. That is especially true in the context of where all of this started. The Chicago Bears quarterback endured a brutal rookie season in 2024. He went 5-12 as a starter and absorbed a franchise-worst 68 sacks. His bad tendency to hold the ball kept getting him in trouble. Too often, he looked lost. To go from that to last season was incredible. He took only 24 sacks, set a Bears record with 3,941 passing yards, and led the team to seven 4th quarter comebacks. Two of them came at the expense of the hated Green Bay Packers.
He won a playoff game and almost knocked off the Rams in the divisional round before falling just short in overtime. Still, it was confirmation that Chicago had finally found a viable quarterback. Hopes are high that he can build on what he accomplished last season and be even better in 2026. In fact, former player Matt Bowen of ESPN went so far as to predict that Williams will win the Most Valuable Player award, making him only the second person in Bears history to achieve that feat.
Caleb Williams will win the NFL MVP award
Williams threw for 3,942 yards and 27 touchdowns in 2025, his first season under coach Ben Johnson. With another offseason to develop in Johnson’s system, the Bears QB is primed to play at a high level in 2026. Plus, he has a versatile and explosive group of pass catchers. The arrow is pointing up on Williams — and Johnson’s playcalling. — Matt Bowen, NFL analyst
Caleb Williams has some issues to iron out to get there.
Winning the MVP in the NFL has pretty much become a quarterback race. It comes down to which one accomplishes two things: puts up big numbers and wins a lot of games. He proved last year that he can do the winning part. So this will come down to what type of stat line might be required to get the notice of voters. When calculating the stats of every MVP winner in the past decade, here is the averages they produced.
- Passing Yards: 4,166 yards
- Passing Touchdowns: 36
- Interceptions: 9
- Completion Percentage: 67.4%
- Passer Rating: 107.8
- Rushing Yards: 265 yards
- Rushing Touchdowns: 3
That is the range Williams must get to before a conversation can even start. The good news is he has shown he can hit a few of those landmarks. His passing yardage last season wasn’t too far from the 4,166 listed above. He actually had fewer than nine interceptions and can easily hit the rushing yards and touchdowns. The big issues for him are touchdown passes, completion percentage, and passer rating.
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Efficiency stands between Williams and that MVP.
Head coach Ben Johnson has been on top of that from the beginning. Caleb Williams is incredibly explosive as a quarterback. What he hasn’t been yet is consistent. His completion percentage has never exceeded 62% as a pro. It was 57% last year. That means he’d have to improve by ten percentage points to reach the typical MVP level. More likely, he’ll want to get around 65% to be in the right neighborhood. That ties directly to passer rating. His 90.1 last season was hampered mostly by his poor completion percentage. Williams had only four games last season with a passer rating over 100.
Bowen is banking on entering the second season in Johnson’s offense to iron out several of those issues. It isn’t a bad gamble. Quarterbacks typically take a notable jump in productivity from their first season to their second season in a new offense. Williams himself proved that in college. He was highly productive as a freshman under Lincoln Riley in 2021. Then, in 2022, he exploded for 42 touchdowns and 5 interceptions, winning the Heisman Trophy. Early signs from spring practices suggest he’s light-years ahead of where he was at this time last season.
It is a major challenge, but not a crazy one.
