Why is the culture changing with Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears? 3 letters: 'Ben' Andy BackstromOctober 15, 2025 at 12:11 AM 0 LANDOVER, Md.
- - Why is the culture changing with Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears? 3 letters: 'Ben'
Andy BackstromOctober 15, 2025 at 12:11 AM
0
LANDOVER, Md. — The ball bounced the Chicago Bears' way in Northwest Stadium on Monday night, 351 days after it bounced into the hands of Washington Commanders wide receiver Noah Brown on a 52-yard Hail Mary that swung the rookie seasons of the top two quarterbacks selected in the 2024 NFL Draft.
The magic of Jayden Daniels' first season with the Commanders continued. His spellbinding playmaking ability toyed with defenses and won him the league's Offensive Rookie of the Year award while he piloted Washington to its first NFC championship game since the 1991 season. Daniels changed the tune of a franchise stunted by decades of poor ownership.
Meanwhile, Caleb Williams, who ironically was a DMV hero coming out of high school, saw his first season with the Bears unravel after his spoiled homecoming. It was the first of 10 straight losses Chicago suffered. He was sacked 68 times. His head coach was fired midseason.
The Bears still didn't have a 4,000-yard passer. They still didn't have a playoff win since the 2010 season.
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Nearly a year later, they have hope, which breathed through the south field tunnel of the very stadium that haunted them last October.
Williams engineered his second straight game-winning drive on the road, this one after Daniels lost grip of a wet ball and botched a handoff exchange on a third-and-1 at the Bears' 40-yard line with 3:10 left and a two-point lead. The fumble in the misty conditions bounced off the breastplate of Commanders running back Jacory Croskey-Merritt, onto the ground and into the arms of a diving Chicago cornerback Nahshon Wright.
FUMBLE! BEARS BALL!CHIvsWAS on ABCStream on @NFLPlus and ESPN App pic.twitter.com/l6Ps1NW7Kj
— NFL (@NFL) October 14, 2025
The Bears went 36 yards in nine plays behind Williams and running back D'Andre Swift, killing clock and setting the stage for replacement kicker Jake Moody to drill a 38-yard field goal for a 25-24 win.
Now 3-2 after an 0-2 start, the Bears once again benefited from a flurry of takeaways, running their forced turnover total to 11 in their past three games. A blocked field goal sealed the deal against the Raiders. A field goal make from Moody, the embattled former 49ers kicker who filled in for the injured Cairo Santos on Monday, did the trick against the Commanders.
"I think it says a lot about our locker room right now," first-year Bears head coach Ben Johnson said at the podium postgame.
"They're not just believing, but now they're starting to understand that, man, if this thing's close in the fourth quarter, then someone's going to step up and make a play for us. And we had a number of guys here in this fourth quarter that did that. I think these wins sometimes can go a longer way for your program than those blowouts do."
Why is Bears' culture changing? 'Ben. 3 letters'
Johnson wasn't there for last year's Hail Mary. He made that clear over the past week. But he has history with the Commanders, too.
They pursued him during a 2024 head-coaching search that ultimately resulted in the hiring of Dan Quinn after Johnson decided to remain the Detroit Lions' offensive coordinator. Then Washington upset Johnson's top-seeded Lions in last season's NFC divisional round.
Johnson, a schematic architect who turns Xs and Os into "whoas," patiently waited for the lead job he wanted. He seized it with intention.
Bears cornerback Kyler Gordon said Johnson doesn't let mistakes in practice slip through the cracks of Halas Hall. Gordon, a 2022 second-round draft pick of the Bears, noticed it right away in OTAs, particularly when he observed Johnson coaching the Bears' offense, a unit that ranked last in the NFL in yards per play last season.
"He's very detailed, and we won't do anything unless it's damn near perfect," Gordon told Yahoo Sports in the locker room Monday night.
Gordon added: "They would line up and redo a play until it's perfect, every single time. In the past, it was never like that. Sometimes it would just get looked over or whatever, but he will not let anything go without it looking correct. You can lose your 1-on-1, but you're not going to mess up the play. And I love that, you know? He just preaches perfection."
To Johnson, execution is paramount. He explained that's why his play-calling menu was smaller against the Commanders. Execution and risk aren't mutually exclusive, however.
Johnson made a name for himself inventing new plays in Detroit, where he returned the hook-and-ladder to prominence, turned his offensive linemen and quarterback Jared Goff into receivers, combined a reverse with a flea-flicker, and, notably against the Bears, debuted the "stumble bum," a fake stumble and fumble that fooled the Chicago defense and created separation for touchdown-receiving tight end Sam LaPorta downfield.
"He is a mastermind," Williams said postgame Monday. "Sometimes he's on the headset, and he's like, 'This is a great play call right here. Here we go.'
"He did that today, and he says that to me. ... Those little things actually provide confidence when you're about to go call the play, and you line up, and you're like, 'Uh oh,' and then the play actually works."
Williams had that "uh oh" moment early in the second quarter near the goal line. Johnson called a designed quarterback run. Williams detected three defenders sitting outside right tackle Darnell Wright.
Caleb Williams runs it in himself for the TD!CHIvsWAS on ABCStream on @NFLPlus and ESPN App pic.twitter.com/ciaJDP9Qz9
— NFL (@NFL) October 14, 2025
But a little play fake and a block from Swift was all Williams needed to get past the pylon for a 1-yard touchdown that put the Bears up 13-0.
They lost that lead, but they didn't lose the game. That's the difference between this Chicago team and several iterations before it.
"Yeah, man, the culture's changing," said defensive end Montez Sweat, a one-time Pro Bowler who started his career with Washington before the Bears traded for him during the 2023 season.
"The culture around here used to be when we get in these close games, we lose 'em. That happened all last year, and this year it seems like we winding up on the other side."
Why is the culture changing?
"Ben," Sweat told Yahoo Sports. "Three letters."
Gordon agreed: "I feel that," he said. "That's real. Ben and the whole staff. Everyone on the same time. Everyone on the same mindset."
"He just got this aura about him," Sweat said of Johnson.
Caleb Williams is benefiting from Bears' culture reset
Williams is beaming more often than not so far this season under Johnson. He's watching fellow 2024 top-10 pick Rome Odunze talk to a swarm of reporters after maybe the biggest win of their fledgling careers.
Williams is happy. He's himself.
It's when he's frustrated on the football field that he has to rein it in. He knows that now.
"I think it's something that I've worked on," said Williams, who's been criticized for wearing competitiveness on his sleeve in the most vulnerable forms at the college and NFL levels.
"That's been something important for me because I know everybody's looking at me for my body language and how I'm moving on the sideline, my energy. Because in those moments, we don't have time for that. Simple as that. It's time to go win."
So when an offside penalty Monday on wideout DJ Moore and a drop from receiver Olamide Zaccheaus ended a potential go-ahead, fourth-quarter drive, Williams stayed composed.
"There's [six] minutes on the clock, and defense is out there," Williams said. "They're going to make a great play for us like they did, and we have belief in that as a team, and we know that's going to happen. I think being able to stay strong in those moments mentally is most important, and that's what I did.
"That's what we did."
Williams dealt with an abundance of adversity Monday. His best throw of the night, an 11-yard back-shoulder touchdown toss to a twisting Odunze midway through the third quarter, was nullified because of a head-scratching illegal formation penalty. The former Oklahoma and USC star bobbled a snap and ate a sack on the final play before the fourth quarter, which started with a blocked Bears field goal attempt.
As has often been the case through Williams' first two seasons, he tried to do too much at times against the Commanders. He went into hero mode to uncork an unsuccessful deep ball to a double-covered Odunze. He also tried to tightrope the line of scrimmage before hurling a fastball for Zaccheaus that was outside the zone.
Williams' resilience superseded the inconsistencies in his game. He finished 17 of 29 for 252 yards and a touchdown to go along with his rushing score. Williams ripped back-to-back completions of 21 and 37 yards on a third-quarter series that ended Chicago's scoring drought. He whipped a pass to Swift a beat early so the shifty running back could make his 55-yard, catch-and-run touchdown happen in space. He found rookie tight end Colston Loveland for a 6-yard pickup on third-and-5 during the game-winning drive.
"I think he has a next-play mentality with everything, honestly," Odunze said. "Whether it was a touchdown or drop, a fumble, a turnover, whatever it was on the last play, he's focused on improving the next play."
When Williams took the field with a two-point deficit and a bit more than three minutes remaining against the Commanders, he had a message in the huddle.
"Before the drive, he's like, 'This is our show,'" Zaccheaus told Yahoo Sports postgame.
"His composure, it just keeps everybody even-keeled."
Swift knifed through the Washington defense to position Moody's game-winner. Williams orchestrated the operation as an extension of Johnson.
Johnson is changing the culture. Williams is winning.
"I'm excited every single day that I get to wake up and be coached by him," Williams said of Johnson. "We believe in him. We trust him. ... The belief in him is there, and we want to win for him. And we obviously want to win for us and the Chicago Bears."
Source: "AOL Sports"
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