Caleb Williams' latest influence on the Bears? A furniture change in the QB room
LAKE FOREST, Ill. — Caleb Williams approached Ryan Poles during the offseason.
The Chicago Bears' starting quarterback had noticed the furniture choice in offices for personnel and coaching staff members. The desks there, Williams saw, adjusted between seated and standing heights.
Williams thought back to late in his first two seasons, when practice time had shortened and meeting time lengthened. Sitting for hours on end left him tight. But he still wanted a surface on which to take notes.
So he asked his general manager: Is there any way the Bears quarterback room could get adjustable standing desks?
Poles approached team president CEO Kevin Warren.
"I didn't even finish my sentence and Kevin's like, 'Yes, order them,'" Poles told Yahoo Sports during a sitdown interview Friday. "Whatever these guys need to be successful, we're going to do it. So that was an easy one."
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The Bears quarterbacks had broke minicamp in June with standard-height tables. They returned for training camp to a room full of adjustable desks with standing options.
Williams showed his quarterbacks the ropes.
"We first walked in, we saw the new tables, really didn't know what was kind of going on," Bears backup quarterback Tyson Bagent told Yahoo Sports. "And then he showed us the buttons and how it works and then said that he kind of was talking to Ryan about it …
"I mean, it's the most unbelievable desk I've ever seen in my life."
It's also unusual for NFL meeting rooms. While adjustable desks have become increasingly common in corporate America, they have not traditionally made their way to player meeting rooms. Coaches and executives across five other NFL teams had not seen that in their current or previous teams' meeting rooms, they told Yahoo Sports via text message.
Some joked about the length of Bears meetings. Others wondered why players would want more time on their feet after practices. But Williams' intent, Poles and Bagent said, was not necessarily to stand after a two-hour training camp practice.
"But you get late in the season, practice time gets cut down drastically and I could see where that could be a great addition late in the season," Bagent said. "He spent two years going through an NFL season. So he understands what it's like late in the season. And he talked about his low back tightening up maybe later on in the past two seasons.
"So it'll be something [to] take a little stress off his low back."
Furniture requests are not Williams' only 2026 tweak.
Bears on Williams in Johnson system: 'Superpowers are coming back to him'
Entering Year 3 as a pro and Year 2 under head coach Ben Johnson, Williams has continuity for the first time in his career. Gone are the days of his three-play-caller rookie year.
The Bears are settling in, with Williams at the helm.
Already in the first year of Johnson and Williams partnership, the Bears improved from 5-12 in the 2024 first overall draft pick's rookie year to 11-6 in his second. Williams' completion percentage dipped from 62.5% to 58.1% in Year 2. But his touchdown-to-interception ratio jumped from 20:6 to 27:7. Williams also rushed for three touchdowns last season after rushing for none his rookie year.
And the most important change in Year 2: The Bears made the playoffs and won a playoff game. Williams' postseason performance featured a roller-coaster ride with high peaks. He completed 52.2% of passes for 618 yards, four touchdowns and five interceptions. But his playmaking helped the Bears edge the Green Bay Packers, 31-27, in the wild-card round before taking the Los Angeles Rams to overtime in the divisional round.
"The first year, I didn't see it as much," Poles said of Williams' playmaking theatrics. "It was like the pocket awareness, escapability, I'm like, 'Damn, where did that go?' And then you saw it this year.
"You see all those superpowers are coming back to him as he gets more comfortable, as he understands what he's looking at."
Williams' understanding of what he's looking at begins at the line of scrimmage.
Teammates, coaches and Poles all cite the Bears offense's vastly improved operation compared to last year's training camp that was "very choppy and borderline bad early on," Poles said.
Now: Williams and his fellow quarterbacks are breaking the huddle more smoothly and spitting out play calls earlier. Quarterback room meetings are spending far less time on Ben Johnson's Scheme 101. Playbook wrinkles are emphasized, to ensure the scheme stays fresh as Johnson did during his tenure as Detroit Lions offensive coordinator, but terminology and cadence are coming more naturally. Williams is helping teammates with corrections.
The quarterback's progress flashes in more obvious ways, like Williams' post route this week to offseason acquisition Kalif Raymond, who played for Johnson in Detroit. Williams diagnosed quarters coverage (four defensive backs splitting the deep field) and threw off one hitch to find Raymond in stride.
And that has come through more subtly at the line of scrimmage, from Williams waving a receiver off and guiding his teammates into the correct run play on one wide-zone call, Bagent said, to Williams baiting the Bears' defense into biting on a dummy identification, according to offensive coordinator Press Taylor.
"It's like, 'Man, we could never operate at that level [a year ago],'" Taylor told Yahoo Sports. "Towards the end of last year, probably the last four or five games, we had a couple free plays that was starting to show his grasp of the cadence. And then now it's like, all right, let's mix these in practice a lot more. Let's get everybody on board with this.
"That felt like his growth."
With growth and comfort has come a return of joy, Poles believes. The general manager sees "infectious" smiles and laughter mixed into the necessary serious, locked-in periods.
"There's so much strain in Year 1 with a new setup," Poles said. "Now you see more of that joy that he had when you watched him play college football. He's having fun. He's still straining to be great and detailed and do the little things right. But you see the joy on his face."
Also on track for reduced strain: Williams' back, thanks to his position group's new standing desks.
Bagent said he may not get to use them given his next-to-the-board meeting room spot would leave him blocking his teammates' view. But Williams, who sits in the back center of the room, won't need to worry about taking yet another possible edge.
"If 18 likes it," Bagent said of Williams, "then we're all good."
