LAKE FOREST, Ill. -- Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams has faced ginormous expectations during his football career, from the time he won the Heisman Trophy at USC to being drafted No. 1 in 2024.
Falling short of the goals he set for himself and the team during the Bears' 5-12 finish last season weighed on the quarterback. That played a role in Williams, 23, publicly declaring several ambitions he has for himself in 2025, including throwing for 4,000 yards while completing 70% of his passes.
But even amid such lofty goals and the expectation that he will develop into Chicago's franchise quarterback, Williams said he doesn't feel any external weight to deliver on those promises.
"Pressure's not a thing for me," Williams said on ESPN 1000's "Waddle & Silvy" show. "I don't think of it that way.
"It's not my job to care what the outside noise is and things like that. My job is take care of everything in here and go out there and play. I know we didn't win as many games as we wanted to last year, but I didn't go 20 [touchdowns] and 20 interceptions and things like that. So, you know, take it for what you want, but no pressure is prevalent; pressure is a privilege, but you know the situation that I'm at. I don't think I have pressure."
Williams threw for 3,541 yards, 20 touchdowns and 6 interceptions as a rookie, which was the fifth-best single-season output ever by a Bears quarterback. Reaching his 4,000-yard goal for 2025 would make him the first quarterback in franchise history to meet that mark. Though he'll have to wait until September to start chipping away at that goal, the quarterback put together arguably his best practice of training camp Thursday, when unplanned moments served as a teaching ground for Bears coach Ben Johnson.
"We were marching down the field, and the headset started going out on me, and I got kind of frustrated," Williams said. "Ben came over to me after, and he was like, 'Have a few plays in mind if that ever happens.' That's more of accountability to me and to this team and having a few plays that if the clock's running down, headset goes out or it's spiking or something -- you can't hear the playcall -- it's a have a few plays, go out there and don't go out there palms up and complain and things like that. Keep going."
The growth Williams has displayed over the first eight days of camp earned praise from his head coach.
"He knows what's coming, and we're getting to the point now where I don't even have to say as much," Johnson said. "He's as hard on himself as I'm being on him, and he's disappointed when we're not spitting the plays out in the huddle the way we should or we're not taking the proper drop or our eyes aren't in the right place.
"He's getting to that point where it's more self-correction, and we're off and running from there. I'm really excited about where he's at mentally."