Caleb Williams is showing the kind of upside Bears fans have been waiting for in training camp, but the same old warning signs are still flashing.
The good news is that Williams keeps proving he can dig the Bears out of trouble. The bad news is that the trouble is still showing up in the first place. In the latest practice, Chicago’s quarterback opened poorly before settling in and finishing with a bang.
“Caleb struggled early (high/behind Rome, INT to Tyrique Stevenson, operation issues) but responded by going 6-for-6 on the game-winning two-minute drill, capped by a TD to Luther Burden. Great resilience,” Bears analyst Clay Harbor said on X.
That kind of response is exactly why Williams has the confidence of the fan base. He has already shown he can handle pressure and close games, and that clutch trait matters. But the Bears can’t keep making things harder on themselves by falling behind early and then trying to fix it late.
That’s especially true with the schedule Chicago is staring at. The Bears already have the toughest slate in the NFL, so interceptions and operational problems are the sort of self-inflicted mistakes they simply can’t afford against top competition.
Yes, it’s only training camp, and yes, it’s only been one week. But it still matters because it points back to the same habits the Bears spent last season trying to escape.
The offense had too many slow starts, and Williams was often left to rescue things with fourth-quarter comebacks. He led an NFL record seven comebacks and game-winning drives in 2025.
And this isn’t brand-new territory for Chicago. Last year’s camp was littered with pre-snap issues and penalties, and those problems carried into the regular season before finally getting cleaned up around November and December.
The numbers told the story, too. The Bears were flagged for the sixth-most penalties in the NFL last season with 120, and they gave up the eighth-most penalty yards at 970.
Williams has the talent to make ugly stretches look manageable. What the Bears need now is a cleaner start so he doesn’t have to keep bailing them out.
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