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The Chicago Bears are entering a new era under head coach Ben Johnson. It has been a while since the Bears were a dangerous football team, but now they seem to have all the pieces they'll need to compete. Johnson has built an incredible coaching staff, and Chicago's roster has not look this good in a long time. Could this be the year the Bears take a big leap forward?
Chicago may not immediately become Super Bowl contenders, but adding Johnson should still do wonders for the franchise. Culture change can take time to develop, as evidenced by Johnson's time with Chicago's division rival in Detroit.
Regardless, Bears fans have real reason for optimism for the first time in years. But that does not mean the 2025 season will instantly become a cakewalk.
Developing chemistry in a new scheme certain takes time. It is fair to wonder which players are failing to live up to Johnson's expectations during practice?
Below we will explore two Bears players who have struggled early during training camp.
Caleb Williams facing early struggles in Ben Johnson's offense
There is no Bears player more important than Caleb Williams.
Bears head coach Ben Johnson set a high bar for Williams ahead of the 2025 season. Johnson challenged Williams to throw for a 70% completion percentage during the regular season.
If Williams wants to hit that kind of efficiency, he'll need to up his game at training camp.
Williams has showed some early struggled in adapting to Johnson's new offense. According to ESPN's Courtney Cronin, Friday's training camp practice was particularly rough for Williams.
In Chicago's third training camp practice, Williams did not complete any passes inside the 20-yard line during seven-on-sevens. In fact, Williams went 0-for-5 with one dropped pass and back-to-back interceptions.
Cronin added that Williams did not complete his first pass of the practice until his 10th attempt. Fortunately, he responded by adding two touchdowns passes after that.
Bears offensive coordinator Declan Doyle did not seem concerned when asked about the state of Chicago's offense.
“No, I wouldn't say that right now,” Doyle said. “This whole thing is a progress, and for the next six weeks we're going to get a ton of reps on all of these plays. We're going to try to master these things. The first time you guys did anything, you know, you're not quite a master at it yet. It takes a little bit of work and progression to get there.”
It is still early days of training camp, so Bears fans should not be too worried that Williams has not mastered Johnson's offense.
ESPN's Dan Orlovsky even warned that Caleb may not initially succeed in Johnson's new complicated scheme.
I'm sure Bears fans will give him plenty of slack, so long as the team shows signs of progress this fall.
Luther Burden III is falling behind at training camp
Another player struggling at Bears training camp is Luther Burden III.
The Bears drafted Burden in the second round of the 2025 NFL Draft. Burden gives the Bears another young receiver to pair with Rome Odunze and DJ Moore.
The problem is, Burden has not been available for much of Chicago's offseason program.
Burden had not practiced since suffering a hamstring injury during OTAs on May 20th. The Bears expected Burden to be ready for the start of training camp. But he ended up missing the first four training camp practices.
Johnson spoke about Burden's health during a recent interview.
“We were very hopeful that he'd be ready to go Day 1,” Johnson said on Thursday. “But the soft tissue that he was dealing with there in the springtime lingered a little bit longer than we wanted. So really, it's day-to-day with him. Hopeful we'll get him out there fairly soon, though.”
Johnson also explained just how far Burden is behind before Tuesday's practice.
“It shows up already,” Johnson said. “I mean, we were in the walk-through yesterday afternoon and the misalignments – we have to re-huddle, we have to start it all over again. He’s a little bit behind right now.”
Thankfully, Burden's time off the practice field was not all wasted.
“Everything that our training staff is telling us we can do physically with him, we're utilizing,” Johnson explained last week. “I know [wide receivers] coach [Antwaan] Randle El has been all over him in meetings, keeping him involved, he's being quizzed non-stop. Our quarterbacks are taking him to the side whether it's walk-throughs or on their own. So he's utilizing that time as much as he can, but there's really no substitute for full-speed reps, and so the sooner we get him out there, the quicker he can carve a role for himself.”
If Caleb Williams is struggling to get a hang of Johnson's offense, it must be even harder for Burden.
Bears fans should expect the team to slowly integrate Burden into the offense throughout the regular season.
