Colin Cowherd is all in on Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson, and he is measuring the partnership in trophies rather than passer ratings.
On Tuesday’s episode of The Herd, Cowherd spoke about watching Williams in person last week. The FS1 host pointed to the Bears’ Thursday night win over New England, where he said Williams finished with a 117.0 passer rating, as the latest evidence.
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“I went and watched him [Caleb Williams] live last week,” Cowherd said. And my takeaway was, he’s Josh Allen without the occasional egregious mistake. I’m not joking, and I watch him, and the fact that now in a clean pocket, he’s Brady. The numbers are ridiculous.”
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Cowherd then reached for basketball and music to explain why the partnership matters as much as the talent.
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“I think it’s one of these things where we don’t want to say it. I think we are looking at kind of a Jordan-esque, like a guy that you get a lot of upside and not a lot of downside,” Cowherd said. “And by the way, Michael Jackson got Quincy Jones, and MJ only won big with Phil Jackson. Part of this component is, you know, LeBron never got the coach. Spoelstra was darn close, and they got to four.”
Cowherd then went on to predict the Chicago Bears quarterback and his head coach will collect championships together across a 10-year run.
“But I think the Ben-Caleb thing, I honestly believe this. It’s going to be ten years and trophies. I believe that.”
How Ben Johnson helped improve Bears QB Caleb Williams’ play
Johnson took over in 2025 with a mandate to fix a quarterback who had been sacked 68 times as a rookie, more than any other passer in the league. Williams went down 24 times in Johnson’s first season, behind a rebuilt interior line.
Johnson set 70% completions as the standard, and the fix he and his staff stressed most was the checkdown. Williams took one on 7.1% of his attempts in 2024, the lowest rate in the league according to Pro Football Focus, while completing 81% of his short throws.
Drew Brees made the same point directly, telling Williams in a Fox production meeting before the opener at Carolina that the difference between a 60% passer and a 70% passer is three completions a game. Williams, who finished 2025 at 58.1%, raised the conversation with Johnson the night before the game.
“We revamped the footwork a little bit last spring, and I think the comfort level grew from that,” Johnson said. “I’m Caleb Williams’ No. 1 believer.”
Williams ranks 2nd in completion percentage (71%), only behind Joe Burrow and ranks 6th in the NFL in passer rating (105.6). This improvement in his game has resulted in Bears becoming a threatening force in the NFC. Should he continue on the same trajectory with Johnson, Cowherd’s 10-year prediction might well come true.
Edited by Santosh Kumar
