70% or Bust: Ben Johnson Sets Unrealistic Target for Caleb Williams at Camp Opener!

From his very first day on the job, Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson made it clear that he's going to set big goals, push players outside of their comfort zone, and be aggressive in working hard together to achieve them.

Ahead of the first Bears training camp practice on Wednesday, Johnson revealed one of those big goals. He wants quarterback Caleb Williams to complete 70% of his passes this season.

Johnson acknowledged that hitting 70% was a season-long goal, indicating the reality that there would be ups and downs to achieve it. However, he was quick to point out the importance of keeping the goal top of mind every practice as the key to being able to achieve it in games.

“We have not put 'you have to complete 60% this day, 65% the next.' We haven't done that."

"We certainly have goals that we strive for. You know, it's not a secret. I've told him I would love for him on the season to complete 70% of his balls. So, you would like to think over the course of practice, that we're completing 70% or more or that's hard to just magically arise in a game."

"It’s a lofty goal, but it’s one we’re going to strive for. And so because of that, we're going to use that as our benchmark and kind of work from there."

As a rookie, Williams completed 351 of 562 attempts for a 62.5% completion rate. It's noteworthy that Williams completed more than 70% of passes in five of seventeen games. That's a good achievement to build from, with the focus now shifting to how to do it consistently every game.

Putting this goal into perspective, Williams would have had to complete 43 more of his attempts in 2024, or about 2.5 more per game, to hit a 70% completion rate on the season. Breaking it down that way, it seems like a manageable task.

However, only five starting quarterbacks had a completion rate that topped 70% last season:

1. Tua Tagovailoa - 72.9%
2. Jared Goff - 72.4%
3. Baker Mayfield - 71.4%
4. Joe Burrow - 70.6%
5. Geno Smith - 70.4%

Aiming to be a Top 5 quarterback on completion rate is a massive one-season jump for a quarterback who ranked 36th in 2024.

Yet, Williams is not only embracing the 70% completion challenge, he's added another big goal of his own — becoming the first Bears 4,000-yard passer in 2025.

What will help Williams to be successful is the confidence and experience Johnson brings from having built an offense and coached a quarterback to achieve both goals, as he did with Jared Goff in Detroit.

While the Bears' offense will be custom-built around Williams' strengths, it will also include elements guided by Johnson's offensive philosophy that led to success in Detroit.

• Playing under center more and adopting a left-foot-forward stance for more efficient drop-backs to enable faster throws
• Leaning more heavily into play-action passing to expand separation and throwing windows for easier targets
• Building in and encouraging checkdowns as a strategy to increase completion rate and help reduce pressure-to-sack ratio
• Having superior pass protection from an upgraded offensive line to reduce sacks and pressures

In addition, Johnson is helping Williams improve his accuracy. While excellent on passes less than ten yards, it was a concern on intermediate and especially deep passes. They are currently focused on improving his footwork and playing on time which should yield more accurate throws.

Collectively, improvement in these areas mastered through lots of repetition — another theme that Johnson mentioned today — should yield more completions, more passing yards, and greater offensive efficiency on a consistent basis.

While lofty, a 70% completion rate and 4,000 passing yards are within Williams' reach in 2025.