Bears QB Caleb Williams is on fire heading toward the playoffs, and keeping that going vs. Lions is crucial

This is no time for Bears quarterback Caleb Williams to slip.

Confidence in him is at its peak, both within the organization and outside it, and it’s imperative he keeps it there in the final regular-season game Sunday against the Lions as the Bears look to secure the No. 2 playoff seed in the NFC.

This already has been a good season. Whether it becomes a great season hinges on Williams maintaining momentum.

He has been on fire the last few weeks, perhaps a turning point, in wins over the Packers and Browns and a tight loss to the 49ers. He threw for 822 yards with six touchdown passes and no interception for a 103.1 passer rating. He’s had three-game outbursts along those lines before, but this time it was against solid opponents and in the middle of the playoff race.

The surge put him in reach of becoming the first Bears quarterback to throw for 4,000 yards in a season. Not surprisingly for a franchise that has started 42 quarterbacks since the 1985 team won the Super Bowl, the Bears are the only team that hasn’t had a 4,000-yard passer.

Williams needs 270 yards to reach 4,000 and 109 to break Erik Kramer’s team record of 3,838 in 1995 (set in a 16-game season). Kramer also set the team record with 29 touchdown passes that season, and Williams needs four — he’s done it twice in his career — to match him.

The Lions, who have been eliminated from playoff contention, are 18th in total defense, 19th in pass defense and 19th in opponent passer rating. Led by Pro Bowl defensive end, they’re 15th in pressuring quarterbacks. So even if the Bears did prioritize Williams’ statistical milestones, they won’t come easily.

Coach Ben Johnson dismissed the 4,000-yard pursuit as mere trivia, and while that’s not entirely correct given that the number symbolizes the Bears’ quarterback futility, he has a point that winning the game and staying on track is more important than chasing a record.

"It continues to get better in terms of the ball placement on a number of throws — short, intermediate and deep — and I’d like to see that trend continue,” Johnson said. “He's just so self-aware now of where he can improve, and it's been really encouraging to see.

“I don't think there's any statistical goal that we're trying to hit other than we have to score more points than the opponent and for him to continue to take what the defense has given us."

Statistics aren't the goal, but they usually tell the story of whether goals are being achieved. Johnson certainly would agree with that after reiterating the importance of the advanced metric of Expected Points Added, setting a target of Williams completing 70% of his passes and highlighting turnover margin, and third-down and red-zone play this week.

Williams is nowhere near that 70% mark — he has completed an NFL-worst 57.9% — but otherwise has improved across the board.

His passing yardage is up from 208.3 per game to 233.1. He followed up his 20 touchdown passes and six interceptions as a rookie with 25 and six this season. Even with the poor completion percentage, his yards per pass are up from 6.3 to seven and his passer rating has climbed from 87.8 to 90.3. He went from being the most sacked quarterback in the NFL last season (68) to taking the seventh-fewest sacks (23).

Williams is eighth in the NFL in passing yardage, seventh in touchdown passes, 18th in passer rating and is No. 1 in fewest interceptions by percentage of passes at 1.1.

Some of that is due to upgrades around him, such as the Bears’ vastly better offensive line, but it also is reflective of his growth. He has taken to Johnson’s coaching and made strides, particularly in pocket presence.

The Johnson-Williams partnership has come a long way since the summer, when Johnson regularly vented frustration about the offense running slowly and clunkily. Williams has acclimated, and Johnson has tightened his approach to the position without scrubbing the creativity and bravado that makes Williams special.

But it’s still in its infancy. They won’t hit a full year working together until later this month.

Only recently has Johnson “taken the training wheels off,” to use his words, and unlocked chapters of his playbook he previously wasn’t sure if Williams and the offense could handle. He and Williams both talk as though they’re going to be together for the next decade, which certainly has been the Bears’ dream.

There’s nowhere better to build than in the playoffs. The pressure of competing against the best with the season on the line is revealing. Williams’ ability to thrive in that setting will say a lot about his readiness to make a bigger jump next season.

He and the Bears would like to believe he’s been ramping up to that over the past month or so. He needs to reinforce that with a strong game Sunday, and in a perfect world for the Bears, he’d play so well that they can get him out of the game early and healthy with an eye on what’s next.