Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show
What can we expect from Caleb Williams in second year with Ben Johnson?
02 Mar 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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That's BuyAToyota.com. Toyota, let's go places. Rahimi Harrison-Grody. Midday's Tindall 2. On Chicago Sports Radio, 104.3 The Score.
This is Rahimi Harrison-Grody on 104.3 The Score, and this is something that amidst all of the business of the Bears and the discussion surrounding what the priorities are or maybe what they see, it kind of got lost in the shuffle, and I think it deserves discussion with you, Mark Grody.
Ben Johnson, in a side session with the media at the Combine last week, was asked about what he expects to see from his quarterback Caleb Williams in year two. What are the advantages Caleb has being in the off-season in his second year with you in terms of knowing what you want and also how much growth can be made because it's not new anymore. It's focusing in, I guess.
Yeah, well, I mean, we saw... enormous growth over the course of the season. You know, I keep going back to what seven-on-seven looked like at the end of the year versus what it looked like to start the year. A drill as simple as that, and yet you see him look so much more comfortable going through some of those same plays.
You know, a lot of it was like riding the bike for the first time with some of these concepts. You just hadn't seen it, and you get thrown ā
a different coverage each and every time now you can accelerate your vision a little bit more and that's what he's learned to do and that's where i'm really confident the direction he's going uh i'm excited for him um i think he's gonna be able to look at some of these cutouts from self scout and look at what he could have done a little bit better um i'm i think what's most encouraging to me is something happened at the end of the year where i showed him one thing on tape
and didn't even think it would come up in the next game, and yet it did. And then he threw the ball to the exact spot that I would have wanted him to throw the ball to.
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Chapter 2: What insights does Ben Johnson provide about Caleb Williams' second year?
Yeah. Are you kidding? We're the ones who told you to go find out how tall he was. But here's the thing. Trevor Lawrence is 6'6", so what's his excuse? Right, right, right. You know, if he's number one. Dak Prescott is 6'2", and has been in the league how long? And at one point was getting serious conversation for MVP. Yeah, I don't know what their stories were.
I'd have to go back and actually watch theirs. Lawrence had no excuse. If he hadn't had that many balls batted down, my goodness, where would the team have been record-wise in the regular season? He might have ruined the season with his batted balls. I don't think that was it, but they definitely enjoyed quite the come-up with Liam Cohen as the head coach. I wonder if that keeps going.
Do you think that keeps going? Does Trevor Lawrence, has he made man now? Has he made it? Is he just going to keep getting better? Or is he is what he is? He was marketed originally as a generational talent. He's on his second contract now, right? Absolutely. No, he's good. He's good. But no, he's not generational. Please. I mean, but here's the thing.
Trevor Lawrence in his second year, let's do this. Let's do the thought exercise. So let's take the Bears bias out of it. Trevor Lawrence in his second year under Liam Cohen, I'm optimistic. So why would I not have reason to believe I should be optimistic with Caleb Williams after showing that much improvement in one year? Right, in his second year with Ben Johnson, third year in the league.
I mean, I know his first year sucked with the coaching around him, but you can't take it away from it. It will be his third year. It will be, but at the same time, when you asked yourself at the beginning of last season what you wanted to see out of Caleb Williams, knowing, yes, Ben Johnson threw out there the 70% completion rate. Yes, that was a part of it.
But when you asked yourself how was he going to improve, What were the things you were looking for? Toyota builds vehicles that don't just keep up. They lead the pack on the road, in your routine, and most of all, within your budget.
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Chapter 3: How has Caleb Williams shown growth throughout the previous season?
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some of the the same well maybe the biggest thing for me going into this year is because i saw it up front obviously covering the bears was the deep ball accuracy just that accuracy in general because that didn't seem to be part of his story at usc in terms of having trouble with accuracy so that that was probably the biggest part and then and then the taking less sacks which he accomplished in a
And I think 708 makes a good point on our text line. Caleb also likes to use creative arm angles that could cause those as well. And even that improved throughout the year. You know, it wasn't just the arm angles. It was that not everything was a plus plus fastball.
Like when you've got to throw off speed a little bit with that touch to somebody who is either running perhaps a crossing pattern over the middle of the field or, you know, it's somebody just ahead of the line of scrimmage that can get some yards for you. I feel like that was also the case.
Well, hopefully, and I'm sure that's part of what they're looking to improve on, the batted balls, and they can look at each and every one of them and look at what the story was and hopefully improve that a little bit without, and this has been one of Ben Johnson's superpowers, without taking away Caleb Williams' identity. He never did that this year.
I mean, he probably did tone some things down early and simplified some things early, but you never saw Ben Johnson not allowing this quarterback to be himself. The one thing, at least if it's a quarterback-related issue, not receivers needing to catch issue, I want to see a more established screen passing game. Okay. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm talking old school, just basic...
Your receiver is next to you, you know, line of scrimmage wise. Like he's dead even with you in the play. He's five yards away from you. Just toss it really easy. Like that touch pass to be able to let him go. And that's a runner's ball too. Ben Johnson was also on with Mike Florio. So here's what Ben Johnson told Mike Florio about this same need to do things.
Give me one thing that you want to see Caleb Williams do to get to the next level in 26. He's got to continue to ascend, continue to work, and go in the same direction that he ended the season. That's the hard part is coming back and getting back on the horse and regaining right where he left off. I think that's really important. I think when you look back at last year,
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