The Chicago Bears went out and made sure Ben Johnson was the 19th head coach of the franchise, one who changed the foreseeable future for the Bears and helped former No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams reach his full potential.

Wednesday afternoon, Williams addressed the media regarding the Seth Wickersham story on the Bears’ quarterback, who is looking for ways to move around, and being drafted by Chicago ahead of the 2024 NFL draft.

Williams started his presser with a lengthy opening statement regarding the information that dropped in Wickersham’s story on May 15.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/45161794/caleb-williams-sought-way-going-chicago-bears

“For this to come out, it has been a distraction, so coming up here and talking about and addressing it is important today,” Williams said. “Yeah, I had a good visit at  the other place, Minnesota, with Kevin O’Connel, a good staff, and all that obviously.”

Williams did clarify that, while his visit with the Vikings was a good one, when he arrived in Chicago for his visit, he knew he wanted to be the one to change the narrative that his dad, Carl, had said: “Chicago is a place quarterbacks go to die.”

“Something that keeps getting lost, that keeps getting not being addressed the way it needs to be, is that the fact that, I went on that visit first then came here, and after I came here, I went back home talked with my dad, and all the things that were supposed to be these big things that everyone has been talking about recently, one never happened in a sense that they were all thoughts, ideas.”

Williams clarified that those ideas about his father talking with Arch Manning, who helped Eli Manning take control of the team that drafted him, or meeting with labor lawyers and agents about possibly signing in the United Football League and then becoming a restricted free agent were just thoughts and ideas, which they were.

While those were thoughts and ideas that filled Williams’ head, knowing the history of the Chicago Bears, Williams said that after he visited Chicago, he found a deliberate and determined answer: he wanted to be in Chicago.

Williams also defended himself before the 2024 NFL draft, saying that having those thoughts about the Bears never having a 4,000-yard passer and all the other ones that came up were fair ones to have.

“I came here on the visit, and just like Ben said, it’s a challenge to be able to come here and try and turn it around, and that was the main goal of all of that, is to through all of what was going on, and through all of what happened, in last year and previous years, I think that was enticing, I think that was something that was glaring to me, that I wanted to come here be the guy, and be a part and be a reason why the Chicago Bears turn things around.”

“The last thing that was said in all of that was the most important thing is that I wanted to be here, I love being here, I love the teammates, I love all the people that got me here. Like I said, it’s a challenge, and we look at those challenges, we don’t laugh, we look at them really seriously, and we go and attack them, to change and turn it around.”

Later in the presser, when asked if Williams’ father speaks for him, he laughed and said, “No, I actually shut my dad down quite a bit.”  Williams said that he’s a supportive parent who wants the best for his son, whom he talks to regularly, but that there is a right place and a right time for things.

After starting the season 4-2, then losing 10 straight, nobody envisioned the Bears firing the offensive coordinator and head coach. Williams said it wasn’t something he looked at and knew would happen in his rookie season.

Another part of Wickersham’s story, which will be published in his book “American Kings: A Biography Of The Quarterback,” published on Tuesday, following the Bears home opener against the Vikings, was that Williams didn’t know how to watch film.

As ESPN’s Courtney Cronin asked Williams the question, he responded with a laugh, saying, “That was a funny one that came out,” Williams said. “It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to watch film. It was more or less the sense of learning shortcuts, learning ways to watch film and be more efficient, learning ways to pick up things better. That was a funny one that came out, in context didn’t, and how I was trying to portray it, didn’t get portrayed that way.”

“It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to watch film, it was trying to figure out the best ways, more efficient ways, so I can watch more film, gather more information, so that when I do go out there on game day, the information that I gather through Monday through whatever day game day is, I can gather it, see it, and react. It’s not me sitting there thinking about the rules or these different things, it’s more of a react game and muscle memory.”

Williams also said that while the timing of this wasn’t ideal, everything is in the past, and he’s focused on the present and the future, trying to get the ship rolling.

Toward the end of the press conference, Williams said that he had discussed the news with his teammates and members of the Chicago front office like general manager Ryan Poles and chief administrative officer Ted Crews to ensure they were on the same page about what needed to be communicated and released, so that everything was addressed and clarified.

Ben Johnson effect

In the short time Williams and Johnson have been able to get to know each other and get on the same page with the new offense, there are already things forming at Halas Hall between the play-caller and quarterback.

Following the film-watching question, Cronin asked William what things Johnson had already done to help him retain film information.

“Ben has been has been extremely detailed, and so when he talks about the plays, when he talks about pass, run, screen and play-action, he talks about them really in-depth,” Williams said. “Just having an idea going into practice, going into soon game days, it’s going to be nice for something that we have been repping and getting after, I think that’s been one of the things that’s ben really awesome the detail, and him really being on top of that, and I’m only trying to catch up to him and be onto of the detail  as much as possible.”

Another thing Johnson has emphasized is Williams’ mechanics, as Williams, who has traditionally been a right-foot-first player in the shotgun formation, has switched to a left-foot-first approach through Johnson.

Johnson, who addressed the media before Williams, emphasized the consistency he wants to see from his offense, both coming in and out of the huddle, a quality they worked on through multiple repetitions on Wednesday.

“There is a certain way that the play needs to get communicated, a certain way a break should sound to us, and around us,” Johnson said. “That means we are ready for business and get going, and if it doesn’t sound that way, we aren’t going to allow the practice to go south.”

While Braxton Jones remains sidelined for phase three of the offseason through OTAs, with his fractured fibula that required ankle surgery, Johnson said there will be musical chairs at Left Tackle. It will be between second-year Kiran Amegadjie and rookie Ozzy Trailpo, who took first-team reps today.

Jaylon Johnson is not at OTAs, according to Johnson, and the absences of Kyler Gordon and T.J. Edwards are due to soft tissue injuries, keeping the players sidelined.