PALM BEACH, Fla. – Quarterback Caleb Williams has been highly successful most of his athletic life. Rare physical gifts, tenacity, smarts and drive have taken him a long way, but new Bears head coach would still like him to make some adjustments.

Some flaws were evident during his rookie campaign, where he made some obvious mistakes while also showing flashes of pure brilliance.

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Johnson isn’t going to tear down his mechanics and rebuild his technique from scratch. Williams will have to make some tweaks to best align with what’s required in Johnson’s scheme. The offensive staff won’t force things, but will find techniques and concepts that work well for him.

“I don’t know if there’s any undoing, but there are some things that we’re going to encourage that he looks to do a little bit differently,” Johnson said Tuesday at the NFL owner’s meetings. “He’s been predominantly a shotgun quarterback for most of his high-school and college career, and so he’s very comfortable there. We’re going to work to see the comfort level under center and how much of that applies.

“We had a lot of success where I was last (in Detroit), that going under center for the run game did translate in play action. Whether that works for us in Chicago, time will tell, right? But there’s a lot of ways to skin a cat. That’s the beauty about this coaching staff is we have a lot of different influences from a lot of different systems that we’ll be able to bring together a good product.”

Johnson has consistently said that he won’t simply bring the Detroit Lions scheme to Chicago. He’ll build it with the Bears talent in mind, using the various influences from an offensive staff that includes young offensive coordinator Declan Doyle and three individuals of various schematic backgrounds with play calling experience.

No matter what Johnson asks of his young quarterback during this offseason, he’ll always explain the why. The former University of North Carolina quarterback speaks Williams’ language and has empathy for the hard process of adjusting technique.

The pair will work to find sync during an offseason program that starts next week.

“I think you need to be able to see the game as a play caller through the lens of the quarterback and vice versa,” Johnson said. “He needs to see it through the play caller as well. Why are we calling certain plays? What is the intent of the play? But for me, everything that I do really is to try to set it up within how he sees the game.

“Some guys do have quarterback backgrounds. Other guys don’t. And so, we’ll take those opinions into account and see what sticks.”

Minimizing quarterback sacks is a major initiative after Williams was sacked a league-high 68 times in 2024, the second-highest rookie total in league history. Williams took responsibility for many of them, and rightfully so. Johnson will have some solutions for that ascpect of his game, one that got the team in trouble while the rookie was trying to do too much and make magic happen.

“I don’t know what the number was in terms of seconds that he held onto the ball before releasing it, but we would certainly like to bring that number down.” Johnson said. “Part of that is how well we can scheme No. 1 or No. 2 in the progression open for him. The protection up front can get better. The route runners can get to their spots faster. We can move the pocket a little bit more. There’s a lot of things that we have at our disposal that can help with that process.”

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