The great expectation from Bears fans is Ben Johnson can turn around Caleb Williams as a quarterback and make him more efficient as well as more explosive.
The other big question is how long it can take after the damage done last year by the Shane Waldron crew.
Sadly, there is no available evidence to rely upon regarding how Johnson works with young quarterbacks. There is only evidence from how he worked with Jared Goff.
The impact of a Johnson-led offense on Goff was dramatic. It also was rapid.
Lions fans will tell you it was the combination of Dan Campbell and Johnson, and it's true Campbell was there. He even called plays in 2021 after taking those duties away from coordinator Anthony Lynn. At the time, they promoted Johnson without title to essentially passing game coordinator besides his duty as tight ends coach. And Campbell called plays.
Even then, there was some improvement for Goff after Lynn lost play calling, but it was slight compared to the leap forward Goff displayed when he had Johnson as coordinator calling plays and working more closely with him.
In the first half of 2021 without Johnson's more direct involvement, Goff had a passer rating of 85.3 with 66.9% completions, eight touchdown passes to six interceptions and 6.5 yards per attempt. The yards per attempt is a paltry number, though not nearly as poor as Williams' 6.3 last year. No QB is going to be effective with a YPA so low, and it will also keep the Bears' expected points added, Johnson's beloved EPA metric, very low.
For his career to that point, including time with the Rams and the first half season under Lynn, Goff had a career passer rating of 90.8, 7.4 yards per attempt, 63.8% completions and was 1,742 of 2,729 for 20,166 yards with 115 TDs and 61 interceptions. It wasn't enough passing to lift his yards/attempt above 6.6, which is still bad, but at least he finished 67.2% completions and with 19 TDs and eight interceptions and a season's passer rating of 91.5.
Enter the Johnson era with full play calling and building up that relationship with Goff even more. Goff had a drop in completion percentage and it could have been expected. It was still a respectable 65.2, but he was throwing it a bit deeper—his average intended air yards climbed from the lowest in the NFL at 6.6 by 10 places at 7.2.
Higher average intended air yards was never a big emphasis as much as getting receivers schemed wide open for yards after catch, so Goff will never have a high figure there. But his yards per attempt climbed higher and higher.
The other big jump for Goff under Johnson was the total yards passing from 3,245 to 4,438. That 2022 total was actually his lowest under Johnson. The completion percentages climbed after the first year and it 72.4% last year.
Every stat Goff has improved and has continued to improve.
His passer rating under Johnson went from 91.5 in the year Lynn and Campbell called plays to 99.3. It hit 111.8 last season.
The simple truth is it took absolutely no time for Johnson to start improving Goff. He improved some with Campbell calling plays but that also was when Johnson took over as passing game coordinator. There were big leaps forward both then and when Johnson called plays and did play design.
When Johnson got promoted to the passing game coordinator, Goff recognized the difference.
“Ben’s been awesome," Goff told Detroit reporters. "Ever since I got here, he’s been one the guys that you can kind of rely on as a good voice and understands kind of everything that we’re trying to do.
“Since he’s been in that (passing game coordinator) role, being able to lean on him and asking these questions and having him take some ownership over some stuff has been really cool. He’s guy who’s got a lot of experience in the quarterback room and applying himself back in his time. But, it’s been a lot of fun working with him."
Then the Lions made Johnson coordinator and the real fun began.
Based on that past, the Bears should expect this with Williams, with a small amount of time factored in due to inexperience. The improvement should be apparent
It's just that Williams has a lot more room to improve than Goff did.
