Inside Ben Johnson’s schematic change that ignited Chicago Bears QB Caleb Williams

The Chicago Bears may have arrived a bit ahead of schedule as the NFC North champions, set to host the Green Bay Packers in the NFL Playoffs at Soldier Field, but Caleb Williams is just scratching the surface.

Following a rookie season filled with turmoil from the coaching box to the pocket, Williams set a Bears franchise record with six comeback victories in 2025, guiding Chicago to the No. 2 seed in the NFC, while flashing the impact of his elite arm-talent and mobility when it is harnessed within a system and scheme built to maximize his best traits.

“The most important decision that has occurred so far,” former NFL quarterback Sage Rosenfels told Between The Hashmarks. “And maybe will ever occur, in Caleb Williams’ career, was the hiring of Ben Johnson.”

That system was imported by Ben Johnson, retro-fitted to help bring out the best in the former No. 1 overall pick, and the Bears are reaping the rewards.

How Chicago Bears’ Ben Johnson raised Caleb Williams’ ceiling

Chicago’s reliance on running backs D’Andre Swift and rookie Kyle Monangai has been well documented, but it’s a major component of Johnson’s system that seems to have raised the ceiling on the Bears’ season and Williams’ immediate future.

Rosenfels also trains Williams, having worked with him off-and-on since the former Heisman Trophy winning quarterback was in eighth grade, and again during the Quarterback Collective Camp. He suggests that Johnson’s reliance on shotgun has been critical to Williams’ rapid development.

“Statistically,” Rosenfels tells me. “The teams that are under center, and run with under-center runs, combined with bootlegs and play-action, those quarterbacks are continually playing the best of all quarterbacks in the NFL.

“With Caleb Williams, whether it was in high school or college at Oklahoma or USC, he was primarily a shotgun quarterback. Then, as a rookie, that staff seemed to say ‘let’s try to make use of Caleb’s athleticism and put him in Shotgun.’ But, Ben Johnson comes in with the system from Detroit, that was his system and they were the most under-center bootleg play action team in football over the past four seasons, and if you look at the Rams, the Seahawks, the Lions, the Cowboys with Prescott, those are the teams, those are thequarterbacks who are under center the most and run the most bootlegs and play action.”

The Bears only run shotgun snaps on 51.7 percent of offensive plays, among the lowest in the league, and Williams’ completion percentage on those snaps is 59.8, compared to just a meager 57.4 when throwing from the shotgun.

For Johnson and the Bears, the combination of building a scheme that puts Williams under center combined with not requiring him to be the focal point; thanks to Swift and Monangai’s contributions and the impact of young pass catchers like Rome Odunze, Luther Burden, and Colston Loveland, Chicago seems to have found the winning formula for sustained success.

“The reality is,” Rosenfels says. “When you build an offense, if you build an offense that forces the quarterback to use all of his capabilities all the time, you’re building an offense that will fail.”

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