Why Ben Johnson’s Bears Will Avoid Regression and Make Another Leap
Despite the Chicago Bears having a successful 2025 season, there remain doubters about the team. Here are some stats to prove the skeptics wrong.
Video Transcript
What's going on Bears fans?
Nicholas Moriano here from Bears Roundtable Sports.
For today's video, we look into the topic of the Bears potentially regressing in the 2026 NFL season.
Despite the Bears winning the NFC North, coming back in the wildcard victory against the Green Bay Packers, taking the Los Angeles Rams to overtime at Soldier Field, there are still some doubters about the Bears and legitimacy of this team moving forward.
And look, there's always gonna be doubters, especially given that the Bears, outside of 2025, have not been a very good football team.
And for maybe the Bears fans that are on the pessimistic side of things, where you think of 2018, where there was this resurgence of a season, a new coach comes in, win the division, double doink their future away, that maybe can come into the mind of some Bears fans.
But there's reason to believe that this Bears team not only is legitimate, but is here to stay.
And now look, they may not lead the league in takeaways like they did last season, or turnover differential plus 22, but there are some other key categories that really play into what this Bears team can be in 2026 and moving forward.
And of course, it r- revolves around Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson.
So NFL analytics expert Warren Sharp, who does an amazing job of breaking things down, all the stats that you really need to know about, does a really good guide that comes out to preview the upcoming season.
Def should check it out.
He put together some stats that highlight where the Bears, Ben Johnson, Caleb Williams, or where Caleb Williams was in 2024 and where he was in this specific category in 2025.
Here we go.
according to Sharp, Williams took a sack or threw an interception on 12% of his dropbacks, finishing 42 of 46 quarter-- of 46 quarterbacks.
When pressured, he took a sack or threw an interception on 34% of his dropbacks, ranking 45 of 46 quarterbacks in 2024.
However, that number drastically changed this last season.
Under Johnson's tutelage, Williams reduced his sacks and interceptions thrown to just 5% of his dropbacks.
That ranked third among 45 QBs.
When Williams was pressured, he took a sack or threw an interception on 13% of his dropbacks, down from 34% the previous season.
Only Matthew Stafford was better in that category.
And Warren Sharp also went into the, the nitty-gritty of how sacks, one, kill drives and how interceptions impact games, and you can definitely read about that in the article below.
But Ben Johnson hasn't changed Caleb Williams to be this reserved quarterback.
If anything, Caleb is still just as aggressive.
He had the most throws of 20-plus air yards-- actually, second-most, throws of 20-plus air yards, only behind Stafford last season.
So he's still pushing the ball downfield, but now he's just valuing the football a little bit more, and that comes from Ben Johnson and the emphasis of protecting the ball.
So you have an aggressive quarterback that now is being coached the right way in the right system, and that's why if those two things continue, the Bears aren't going to regress.
They're just gonna become an even more dangerous team now that Caleb Williams and his-- going into his second season in Johnson's offense.
Let me know what you think.
Are the Bears primed to regress from last season, or are they in a position to build off of what happened in 2025 and go even further in 2026?
