The Chicago Bears are already under a ton of pressure to succeed during the 2025 NFL season. Chicago was hailed as the NFL's most improved team earlier this offseason after hiring Ben Johnson and making a flurry of smart roster moves. The Bears are still working out some of the kinks during training camp.
Bears GM Ryan Poles finally weighed in on a viral video that showed QB Caleb Williams struggling at training camp.
“I actually think it's pretty cool,” Poles said about the public's response to the video, per ESPN. “I knew there was a bad practice. I've seen clips on Twitter. I didn't know it was a national crisis of Caleb struggling.”
In the video, Williams misses four consecutive checkdown passes while targeting the throwing net at practice. After missing the fourth pass, Williams screamed and walked away from the throwing net.
Chicago made plenty of changes this offseason in the hopes of accelerating Williams' growth in 2025. Poles admitted it could take time before Williams feels comfortable in Ben Johnson's offensive scheme.
“I think as a human being, I want it to happen super fast, and I would love for it to look really clean and for [Williams] to look like a fifth-year vet right now,” Poles said. “But I think, just being in this long enough, what's reality, though? It's going to take time. It's new.”
Poles also noted that defenses tend to have an advantage towards the beginning of training camp.
“A new defense is going to jump out faster. It always does,” Poles added. “We're also playing this man scheme that [defensive coordinator] Dennis [Allen] is playing is a pain, and he is not holding back anything. And I think because of that it might look choppy at times, but that's what you want. You want this time to look, be as hard as possible. And then when you get to game time when the lights come on, you want that to then slow down.”
The expectations for Caleb Williams are already through the roof. In fact, Johnson even challenged Williams to throw for a 70% completion percentage during his sophomore season.
Ultimately, it is important to remember that these are still the early days of training camp.
There is still plenty of time for Williams and the Bears to make adjustments before the regular season.
