Nobody disputes Caleb Williams had a breakout year for the Chicago Bears in 2025. He threw for 3,941 yards, breaking the single-season franchise record, and had 27 touchdowns to just seven interceptions. His seven 4th quarter comebacks were another record, helping the team to an 11-6 record and a division title. He even became the first Bears quarterback in 15 years to win a playoff game. One would think the Bears are thrilled, and they are. Enough to start thinking about a contract extension after this season? General manager Ryan Poles was asked about it during an interview with The Bigs.

First and foremost, the answer is yes. There have been preliminary discussions about what an extension could look like. However, Poles made it clear immediately that it’s a little early for such things. The best thing for Williams to do is put such things out of his mind and focus on the 2026 season. Nothing else. Keep getting better. The money will be there if he does that.

Interestingly, the Bears’ GM mentioned a small criticism, stating the feeling that Williams pressed a little too much once the team was in the playoffs. He must learn to trust head coach Ben Johnson’s instructions and not try to shoulder everything himself.

Ryan Poles isn’t entirely wrong.

If you go back and rewatch Williams’ two playoff performances, there is clear evidence that the young quarterback was playing way too fast. He was trying to eat everything in one bite on too many occasions. It was particularly true in the first half against Green Bay and the second half against Los Angeles. As a result, he threw five interceptions. Remember, he had seven the entire regular season. The Packers and Rams didn’t discover some magic elixir with Williams. His unwillingness to play with more patience hurt his team one too many times.

The good news is this isn’t anything uncommon. There are plenty of instances of young quarterbacks failing to play with enough discipline during their first playoff trip. Peyton Manning completed just 19 of 42 passes in his first-ever playoff game. Ben Roethlisberger threw five interceptions in his first two playoff games. Eli Manning threw three interceptions in his first. John Elway had more interceptions than touchdowns in his first five playoff games. The point is, you can learn from your mistakes.

Williams should take a lesson from the recent Super Bowl champs.

Sam Darnold wasn’t the primary reason the Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl last season. However, his ability to make enough plays while protecting the football proved decisive. He threw five touchdowns and no interceptions in three games. It was much the same for Jalen Hurts the previous year. He didn’t light up the stat sheet, but he made enough big throws to tilt games in his team’s favor without putting the ball in jeopardy. His five TD passes and one interception were an ideal ratio.

Ryan Poles understands this reality well. Patrick Mahomes threw 10 touchdowns and two interceptions in that first Super Bowl run in 2019. For all the talk about the explosive plays, it was Mahomes’ ability to limit the self-inflicted wounds that gave his team a chance to claim the crown. Hell, even Jim McMahon is proof of this. He had no interceptions in his three games during that iconic run to the 1985 championship. The Bears don’t need Williams to be Superman all the time. Just execute the offense, protect the ball, and go make a play if there’s no other choice.

One of the weirder controversies from last year developed when Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman, a longtime color analyst for NFL games, revealed that he’d been jilted by Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams. The story goes that Aikman and his broadcast partner, Joe Buck, were supposed to meet with Williams before a Monday Night Football game, as is customary before a national broadcast. However, the Bears quarterback never showed up, later insisting he lost track of time. This led to unusually sharp criticism from Aikman during the broadcast.

Buck later revealed that Williams did it again a few weeks later in the big rematch against the Washington Commanders. That was the first indication that the Bears quarterback might’ve been deliberately dodging them. It felt so unusual. Why would Williams do that? There was no reason for it.

Or so we thought.

Aikman recently joined the Miami Dolphins organization in an unspecified consultant role to help their search for a new general manager and head coach. During an interview with Clarence Hill Jr. of DLLS Sports, he admitted that he has knowledge and information on other teams, from coaches to players, that he’s happy to share with the Dolphins.

Seems avoiding Troy Aikman was the right call.

In those statements, Aikman basically admitted that he was more than willing to act as a snitch to another team on the Bears’ operation. Such information would’ve been gained in those meetings before the nationally televised games. Whether Williams found out about the possibility or just got a bad vibe from Aikman is unknown. What matters is that his ducking those meetings with the Hall of Famer suddenly makes way more sense. He wasn’t about to let Aikman serve as a spy, happy to sell off information to the highest bidder.

This is the same stuff Tom Brady was accused of when he took part ownership of the Las Vegas Raiders, while still retaining his new role as a broadcaster. Many people felt it was a significant conflict of interest. It seems fitting that Aikman ended up being the one admitting the advantage it could give his new team. Ironically enough, the Bears will play the Dolphins this upcoming season. No doubt Williams will make sure to keep his distance from Aikman moving forward, whether he likes it or not.

Williams doesn’t owe Aikman anything.

Contrary to popular belief, players are not obligated to meet with TV crews before a game. It’s just been something networks request to help build the plotline of a big matchup. Troy Aikman has used his obvious star power in this role for many years. Who knows how many times he has used that inside knowledge to aid another coach or team he happens to like? He’d deny it, of course, but the point is he’s not impartial. Williams dodging him clearly hit a nerve, almost as if the young quarterback had no intention of kissing the ring.

All things considered, this is merely another reason not to like Aikman. Being the quarterback of the Cowboys during their greatest period was bad enough. Watching him belittle the Bears for so many years didn’t help matters. Now the team finally gets a quarterback worthy of praise, and he shows his true colors when Williams decides his time is better spent trying to win games.

People thought they knew what they were getting when Ben Johnson became the primary target for the Chicago Bears‘ head coaching position. He was the latest in a line of offensive wizards who’d transformed the Detroit Lions into a juggernaut. Many described him as a math whiz with a computer brain. Most took that to mean he might be more of the nerdish type, approaching the position with cold efficiency. It didn’t take long to realize those people were dead wrong. Johnson was intelligent, sure. He was also highly competitive.

And combative.

Hiding behind every smile in front of the cameras was a man that players and assistant coaches described as a demon. He was obsessed with winning and would not accept anything less than the best from everybody, including himself, to achieve that aim. Unfortunately, such a relentless pursuit can lead to making some enemies. Johnson quickly earned a reputation around the league for being brash, arrogant, and unafraid to take shots at opponents in the media. It led many to label him the NFL’s new villain. The guy everybody loved to hate. When asked about this newfound reputation on The Bigs, the Bears’ head coach cracked a grin.

“I didn’t come into this league or take this position to necessarily make friends. That’s not the case. I love what I do, I love who I’m doing it with. That’s the most important thing to me and everything I do is with them in mind.”

Ben Johnson is a throwback type of coach.

These days, it’s hard to find somebody who doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty when it comes to needling other teams with his words and actions. It brings back memories of someone like Jimmy Johnson. People remember him as the architect of the Dallas Cowboys dynasty of the 1990s. What they often forget was he had a well-established reputation for using the media to snipe opponents and motivate his players. He famously guaranteed a win over the San Francisco 49ers in the 1993 NFC championship. Every time he was asked about it, Johnson brushed it off as if it wasn’t worth the attention.

The truth was the Hall of Fame coach wasn’t in the business of making friends. His job was to win football games. He didn’t care whether he was loved or hated, inside or outside the building. All that mattered was that players did as they were told and executed at a high level. The results spoke for themselves. Ben Johnson is much the same way. He loves his players and his staff. That said, such love comes with a price. It is how much he trusts you to do the right things when the game is on the line.

Somebody has to wear the black hat.

You often find that the best eras of NFL football featured at least one team with a rogue head coach and a bunch of physical, nasty players behind him. It was the John Madden Oakland Raiders in the 1970s or the Bill Parcells New York Giants of the 1980s. More recently, you had Pete Carroll’s Seattle Seahawks of the early 2010s. Those teams didn’t care if they were hated. They seemed to almost thrive on it. Success came anyway, and that is the reality Ben Johnson understands.

It ultimately doesn’t matter if people don’t like him. That has no bearing on the outcome of football games. If anything, it might work in his favor. With other teams focused on what he says or does, they don’t have enough left to handle their business on the field. It certainly worked with the Green Bay Packers, who seemed more intent on getting revenge on Johnson for his treatment of head coach Matt Lafleur than winning a game. Make no mistake. There is deliberate intent behind all of this.

Last year, the Chicago Bears met with several players at the scouting combine and during top-30 visits. It was the usual process for every team. However, something strange about it stood out. None of the names that reached the public ear ended up being drafted by the team. Colston Loveland, Luther Burden, Ozzy Trapilo, and the others went unmentioned. It was hard to believe that it was coincidental. Sure enough, offensive line coach Dan Roushar revealed the team had started using visits more for gathering information on players they had questions or concerns about.

In other words, if a player’s name popped up for a meeting, it meant the Bears were skeptical about them. That is why it isn’t wise to read much into the list of names they’ve brought in for visits to Halas Hall or even met formally at the scouting combine. Perhaps the smart thing to do is dig through the debris to find the names they haven’t met. Five in particular jumped out as curious omissions.

These five names have oddly not met the Chicago Bears.

Keldric Faulk (EDGE, Auburn)

The Bears have met with or attended the pro days of several prominent edge rushers over the past several weeks. They met with Zion Young twice, T.J. Parker, Cashius Howell, and Akheem Mesidor at the scouting combine. Faulk has not been mentioned at all. No combine meeting and no scheduled top 30 visit. This is baffling since most agree the Auburn standout is the most natural fit for Dennis Allen’s system. He’s 6’6″, 276 lbs, has 34-inch arms, and is already a great run defender. He’s shown flashes of pass rush potential despite only being 20 years old. Many see him as having the highest upside of any edge rusher in the 1st round, but he’s still a project. One would think Chicago would at least be interested. The silence is deafening.

Peter Woods (DT, Clemson)

If you’ve been paying attention to every mock draft in the past month, you’ll likely see Woods’ name connected to the Bears in half of them. So it might shock you to learn that there are no reports of the team meeting with the Tigers standout, be it during the combine, his pro day, or a private visit. Complete radio silence. Many feel Woods is the most natural three-technique in the entire draft, having the right mix of upper-body strength and lower-body explosiveness to collapse pockets up the middle. The problem was that it didn’t appear much in his production. He feels like a projection more than a proven commodity. Yet the fit to Allen’s system is obvious. Besides, he’s no stranger to Clemson defensive tackles, as Bryan Bresee can attest.

A.J. Haulcy (S, LSU)

Losing Kevin Byard was tough for the Chicago Bears. His ability to patrol the back end and make big plays was incredibly valuable. Sadly, the team felt his lack of run-defending ability, and his advancing age made bringing him back difficult. That is where Haulcy comes in. He has a supernatural instinct for finding the football, snagging eight interceptions between 2024 and 2025. What sets him apart is that he can deliver some bone-rattling shots on ball carriers. The Bears have met with every other top safety prospect, including Dillon Thieneman, Emmanuel McNeil-Warren, and Jalon Kilgore. No mention at all of Haulcy. It might be wise to file that one away for later.

Caleb Lomu (OT, Utah)

The Bears have been mentioned in close proximity to some of the top left tackles in this class. They were at Alabama’s pro day to watch Kadyn Proctor and have met privately with Arizona State’s Max Iheanachor. The only one they have had zero known contact with is Lomu, which is surprising. After all, head coach Ben Johnson prefers athletic tackles who are technically proficient, as we saw with Ozzy Trapilo last year. Lomu checks both boxes, having two years of starting experience at Utah. His primary issue is building up his strength base, which is underdeveloped. That doesn’t sound like something that would scare the Bears away, which makes the communication blackout all the more interesting.

Jordyn Tyson (WR, Arizona State)

Wide receiver was not even a consideration for the Chicago Bears going into this offseason. That changed quickly after the team traded D.J. Moore to Buffalo, and led Olamide Zaccheaus to walk in free agency. Kalif Raymond replaces the latter, but they still have a notable void where Moore stood. While a 1st round wide receiver feels unlikely, it’s interesting the Bears haven’t at least met with Jordyn Tyson. The ASU playmaker has everything this staff loves: route-running, run-blocking, toughness, grit, and a knack for elevating his play in big games. He’d be a top 10 lock if not for some injury problems in college. There is a risk involved, but he’s such a perfect fit for what they do.