Grading Caleb Williams' preseason: Did he do enough to instill confidence?

Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams says he feels no pressure entering the 2025 NFL season , but it's a pivotal one for him. After a solid yet underwhelming rookie year, Williams is expected to show significant development under the tutelage of new head coach Ben Johnson, and to show it early in the season.

That's still over two weeks away. For now, we can only judge Williams based off of what we've seen in the preseason. He didn't see much action, getting just two drives in the Bears' second preseason game and the entire first half of their preseason finale against the Chiefs, which was a rough outing for the Bears' starters on both sides of the ball.

Williams finishes his preseason with 220 passing yards while completing 17 of 25 pass attempts, just shy of Ben Johnson's goal of 70% completion percentage. He threw two touchdowns and zero picks while taking just one sack. He also had a couple of highlight-reel plays, like this gorgeous pass up the seam to Cole Kmet for a big first down.

It's tough to grade Williams' preseason this year. Honestly, it's tough to grade any preseason performance. The starters only play a short amount of each game, and the coaches aren't really trying to win. But we'll give this grade our best shot.

In his preseason debut against the Buffalo Bills, Caleb Williams silenced his critics with a nearly flawless opening drive. He was getting the ball out on time and accurately, but that came against Buffalo's backups. Friday night's game against the Kansas City Chiefs was a different story.

Against Kansas City's vaunted defense, Williams predictably struggled early with holding the ball too long and keeping his footwork clean. He improved in the second quarter, leading the Bears to a field goal drive, then capping things off with a touchdown just before halftime, though the Chiefs had pulled their starters for this final drive.

All in all, I give Williams' limited preseason action a B- grade. He flashed all the things we want to see from Williams in Year 2, but those flaws in his game still showed up, especially against the Chiefs. I didn't ding him too hard for that, considering the Chiefs have been to three straight Super Bowls and won two of them while the Bears, well, have not.

Ultimately, the preseason doesn't matter at all. It is at best a glorified practice for the starters to work on their conditioning and their timing. Real football starts in just a couple of weeks, and that's when we'll see what Williams is made of.