Caleb Williams has played well this season. Don’t let the pessimists fool you. He’s got a 3-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio (17 TDs to 5 INTs), has five 4th quarter comebacks, and is 9-3. Those are all good numbers. The one problem that most people can’t get over is his completion percentage, which is 58.1%. That is well below the league average and is often indicative of accuracy problems. Part of that is true. Williams hasn’t been consistently hitting his receivers when they’re open. However, those same receivers haven’t helped with mistimed routes, stumbles, slips, and outright drops.

Whatever the course, Bears fans fear this is a problem Williams cannot overcome. Accuracy is not something that can be easily improved. However, Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune offered some interesting data on this subject.

Since 2016, 25 quarterbacks have had 300 or more pass attempts in a season and finished with a completion percentage below 60%. The list includes the rookie seasons for eight quarterbacks: Josh Allen, Bryce Young, Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson, Sam Darnold, Josh Rosen, DeShone Kizer and Mitch Trubisky.

Others on the list include Carson Wentz, Drew Lock, Baker Mayfield, Andy Dalton, Cam Newton, Jacoby Brissett, Trevor Siemian, Blake Bortles, Colin Kaepernick, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Brock Osweiler. Like Allen, some appeared on the list more than once. There are a couple of really good quarterbacks here and a some who are easy to forget.

The common line with all of those notable names?

It took them a few years to learn how to play the right way. Allen figured it out by his third season. Darnold didn’t click until his seventh. Mayfield flourished in his sixth. The lesson here is that some quarterbacks take longer than others to find their groove. You also need them to be under the guidance of an excellent offensive mind. Allen with Brian Daboll, Darnold with Kevin O’Connell, and Mayfield with Dave Canales. Williams being under Ben Johnson is an incredibly good thing.

Caleb Williams’ biggest problem is fundamental.

Based on his long track record, he’s never been naturally inaccurate. When he decides to cut it loose, he can throw the ball on absolute ropes. The problem is he’s playing in a totally new type of offense. Johnson’s system is timing-based. That means the quarterback is throwing to spots where his receivers will be rather than where they are. It is a tremendously effective scheme when it works, but it is hard to learn. Caleb Williams never played in anything like it during his college career. His offenses were always about finding the open guy and hitting him.

Learning how to play with timing and anticipation is like going from high school algebra to a PHD in quantum physics. It can leave the head spinning. Everything must be in alignment for it to work. The quarterback must have crisp footwork, read the coverages quickly, and know where his receivers will be before their breaks. If you’re a tick too slow, the pass won’t be on target. That is pretty much what has been happening with Williams.

The good news is that he has improved significantly in the past couple of months. If this trajectory holds, Williams will blossom the same way Allen, Darnold, and Mayfield have.

Make no mistake. Ben Johnson is not what you’d call a normal offensive genius. Ever since the rise of Don Coryell and Bill Walsh in the 1980s, the label for young offensive wizards has always been guys who build their identity around passing the football. It was true of Mike Holmgren in the 1990s, Mike Martz in the 2000s, Andy Reid in the 2010s, and Sean McVay in the 2020s. However, Johnson is a rather significant departure from those names. He has developed a specialty for crafting a diverse and lethal running game, perhaps the most deadly in the NFL today.

It is hard to understand where this came from. After all, Johnson was a quarterback in his youth and played that position all the way through college. It would make perfect sense for him to become a pass-first enthusiast. Instead, he developed an old-school mentality sprinkled with creative flair. Where did it come from? Johnson finally revealed the truth during an interview with Peter Schrager of ESPN. The origins of it all stem from his time in high school at A.C. Reynolds in North Carolina.

Ben Johnson learned that winning often occurred when you ran well.

He was the starting quarterback for A.C. as a junior in 2002. The Rockets went 14-1, led by a dominant ground attack, and won the state championship. A year later, they went 11-4 and reached the state semifinals again. This experience carried over into college. During his four years at North Carolina, Ben Johnson routinely watched dominant rushing teams win. It was true of USC, Texas, Florida, and LSU on a national level, and Virginia Tech in the ACC Conference he played in. Running the ball well led to success.

Then you have his arrival in the NFL. Johnson spent his first seven years with the Miami Dolphins. Their most successful season, 2016, saw them rank 9th in rushing. So the lessons had been stacking up for years. When he finally got his chance to run an offense of his own, Johnson combined that knowledge with his own high intelligence to create a monster. In an NFL landscape overrun with pass-first systems, his run-heavy shift has left many defenses scrambling for solutions that don’t exist.

The Green Bay Packers have had one of the best defenses in the NFL all season, driven by their excellent pass rush. Expectations were that the trend would continue on Sunday as they host the rival Chicago Bears. All they’d have to do is slow down Ben Johnson’s vaunted running game enough to force Caleb Williams to throw. Such a method has been successful numerous times in the past against the Bears. However, that may prove problematic this time, as word continues to surface about injuries on defense.

Green Bay was already dealing with the bad news of losing Devonte Wyatt. The defensive tackle will miss the game with an ankle injury. He’s their best interior pass rusher and won’t be easily replaced. Then there is Lukas Van Ness, their big defensive lineman, who has played well this season before a foot injury hobbled him. That is two key defensive linemen out of the picture. Now it appears the Packers’ secondary took a hit as safety Javon Bullard was downgraded with an ankle issue of his own.

Bullard is probably their best run-stopping defensive back.

The Chicago Bears now have a clearer path to victory.

Much of the Packers’ interior defense could be out on Sunday. Wyatt won’t be able to rush the quarterback, while Van Ness and Bullard will be absent in run defense. For a team like the Chicago Bears, that is brutal timing. They have arguably the best interior offensive line in the NFL right now, fresh off abusing the Philadelphia Eagles last week for 281 rushing yards. Green Bay has been solid against the run most of the year, but they have become a little softer in recent weeks. They went from allowing 78 yards per game through the first seven weeks to 125 in the past five.

Now you remove another key piece to their defense, and it raises concerns. Everybody knows the Bears will run the ball. It isn’t just that they have strong blockers and good running backs, either. Johnson is one of the best schemers in the NFL. He knows how to create lanes better than most. Every Packers defender must be on top of their details. That becomes incredibly difficult when you start losing key starters. Maybe Green Bay handles the losses fine and takes care of business anyway.

If they don’t, their season gets a little more precarious.

The debate surrounding Caleb Williams is akin to a mudslinging match. There are two sides, but it’s so dirty and sloppy that it’s hard to tell who is who. On the one hand, Williams has one of the worst completion percentages of any starting quarterback this season, sitting barely above 58%. He still holds the ball for a long time and hasn’t refined his fundamentals enough. On the other hand, he’s got an almost 4-to-1 touchdown to interception ratio. He’s 9-3 as a starter, is much better at avoiding sacks, and has taken a big step as a leader.

That is why many are reluctant to call him a good quarterback at this point. He’s made his fair share of big plays, but not enough to justify putting him among the NFL’s upper tier. Williams is the weak link of this offense. Except that isn’t the truth at all, at least not according to Adam Hoge of CHGO. He’s been charting the Bears quarterback this season and has come away with some notable findings. While accuracy remains an issue, Williams’ decision-making has improved drastically over the course of this season.

I think the most important part of this conversation, though, is where the improvement needs to happen. Because the tape shows that Williams is playing “quarterback” well. By that, I mean he is running Ben Johnson’s system well. He is seeing the field, making good decisions and throwing with anticipation. Over the last three games, his decision-making has improved each week. In fact, I didn’t have him down for a single bad decision in last week’s win against the Eagles — just one that was debatable at best.

Caleb Williams is seeing the field.

That may sound like a simple statement, but it carries immense meaning. One of the hardest things for a quarterback at the NFL level is seeing the field well. They can identify coverages quickly and let the ball rip to spots where the receivers should be. They can also diagnose what defenses are trying to mask and adjust plays at the line of scrimmage. Head coach Ben Johnson even admitted he made a bad play call against Philadelphia last Friday and Caleb Williams fixed it before the snap. That would not have happened a year ago.

History says that once the game slows down for a young quarterback, everything else should fall into place. His throws will become more decisive and accurate. They’ll start thinking less and reacting more. Williams is getting closer and closer to that tipping point each week. His mastery of Johnson’s system is growing. The team is winning. That is likely why he hasn’t felt the need to press. He’s letting things happen naturally. If this decision-making remains on its current trajectory, a breakthrough feels imminent.