LAKE FOREST, Ill. -- The day after Caleb Williams' rookie season ended with a win over the Green Bay Packers, the Chicago Bears quarterback unpacked the triumphs and struggles of a roller-coaster season.
The 24-22 victory snapped a 10-game losing streak and was the Bears' first win in Green Bay since December 2018. There were highs (an NFL rookie record for most passes without an interception at 353) and lows (68 sacks was the third most in NFL history).
There were also coaching changes. Head coach Matt Eberflus and offensive coordinator Shane Waldron were fired in-season, replaced by Thomas Brown, who was not retained after the season.
To call it a learning season for Williams would be quite an understatement.
"I'd say there were more lessons this year than I've had," Williams said, "and one of the things was all of the different things throughout the week that are needed for me to be able to go out there and play well, for the team to play well."
One lesson became a controversial topic in a book. No one on the coaching staff helped Williams learn how to study game film, according to ESPN reporter Seth Wickersham's upcoming book "American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback."
Williams wasn't the first young NFL quarterback to face that predicament, but others who have been in that position talked about the importance of understanding film study and how it accelerates a QB's development. One called what the Bears did "malpractice," while another said it's not common for coaches to teach film study. The Bears hired former Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson as their head coach in January and trust that film study will no longer be an issue.
"It wasn't that I didn't know how to watch film," Williams said in May. "It was more or less the sense of learning shortcuts ... learning ways to watch film and be more efficient. Learning ways to pick things up better."
Williams' story rang true to Alex Smith, who went No. 1 to the San Francisco 49ers in 2005.
"I spent years just wandering around in the film room having no idea what to look at," said Smith, who is now an ESPN analyst. "It took me a long time to find my own way on how to do this efficiently. Like years and years and years."
When the 49ers traded away veteran quarterback Tim Rattay five weeks into the 2005 season, Smith said, he was left alone to dissect information that he didn't know how to process. Every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday night was spent sitting alone in a film room not knowing what his eyes should be looking for.
Smith felt lost. He was putting in the hours but left those film sessions feeling directionless.
"I ran basically 20, 25 plays in college over and over and over again," Smith said. "And I saw three defenses. Very vanilla stuff. It's not that hard to prep.
"But in the NFL, you're getting a new game plan every single week, so it's brand-new offense formations, shifts, motions, and it's obviously by a multiple of 10 to 20, and this changes every week. And defensively, you're getting ready for way more volume."
It wasn't until San Francisco brought in veteran QBs Sean Hill and Trent Dilfer in 2008 that Smith felt as if he had a road map.
"It was a lot of trial and error over the years and finally figuring out what works for you and how to really do it efficiently," Smith said. "I think that's the biggest thing. There's such limited time in the week to master this."
By the time he was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs nine years into his career, Smith felt as if he had the tools he needed to watch film efficiently and know what to identify.
Then it was his turn to pass that information along. When the Chiefs drafted Patrick Mahomes in 2017, Mahomes spent his first season learning how to watch film and handle the information flow.
"Sometimes as a young quarterback, you don't know what to ask," Smith said. "You don't want to sound stupid, so you don't get the clarification you should.
"Patrick got to sit in the room when I was like, 'Don't call that play; get it out of the game plan' or ... 'Why are we doing this? Why don't we do it this way?'"
For Williams, help will come not only from Johnson but also from 11-year veteran Case Keenum, signed by the Bears as a backup QB. Keenum started 66 games over 80 appearances with seven teams. He's also credited with helping the development of Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud.
"He's done a great job with his experience bridging that gap sometimes between coaching and playing and finding any potholes that could be in there," Johnson said.
The Bears' quarterbacks room was devoid of experience last season. Backup Tyson Bagent had just finished his rookie season. The other quarterback, Austin Reed, spent his first season on the practice squad. There were a total of four games of starting experience (Bagent in 2023) in a room where Williams was QB1 from the first day he set foot inside Halas Hall.
"Coaches are doing so much to try and prepare for the next game or scout ahead," Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford said. "You got to lean on guys that are actually playing in those games and how they go about it and how they get ready."
Every coach has a different plan for how much volume they present to quarterbacks. One NFC quarterbacks coach said he'll point out specifics based on how he cuts up film. If it's a day when the quarterbacks are studying third downs, the coach will show QBs where pressures tend to come from based on a defense's tendencies. He'll ask his quarterbacks to identify any man or zone coverage tells or false tells aimed to bait an offense. He'll ask whether they can see the shell of the defense pre-snap and, if they can't, whether using a cadence will identify the coverage.
And after going through this in the meeting room and on the practice field, the coach said he encourages his quarterbacks to meet together in the evenings to recap the day from practice.
"You can give all of this information, guys kind of nod, but [it might not sink in] unless you force them to give it back to you and then they're able to show it in jog-through or some of these walkthrough settings and then in practice," Rams coach Sean McVay said.
ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky recalled when McVay persuaded him to sign with the Rams in 2017 as the third quarterback to help Jared Goff learn how to study film.
"Every day, we would study tape in the meeting rooms," Orlovsky said in an interview with Athlon Sports. "I would then go to Jared's house. He spent money. He wanted to learn. He spent time and money and built himself a film study room, a place to study tape."
It was the spring after Goff's rookie season, and Orlovsky said they had to start with the basics.
"I feel the same way about a Caleb or whatever; it's not that Jared was dumb, he wasn't taught," Orlovsky said. "We had to spend so much time, Jared learning defensive fronts ... and different coverages.
"He had to play big-time catch-up."
Goff caught up and helped lead the Rams to the Super Bowl in his third year. After being traded to the Lions in 2021, Goff -- with Johnson as his offensive coordinator -- helped turn Detroit into one of the top offenses in the league.
Whether Williams can do the same under Johnson's tutelage remains to be seen. One thing is for certain, the Bears won't let their quarterback fly solo again in the film room.
"I think it's really important to him that he gets it right," Bears offensive coordinator Declan Doyle said. "I think his teammates can feel that. I think his teammates feel a guy that's trying to take the next step."
Sarah Barshop contributed to this report.