Ben Johnson has a blunt answer for Liam Coen’s Caleb Williams complaint
Liam Coen’s complaint was that nobody pays attention to the Jacksonville Jaguars, and he chose to make that point by describing how many pictures of Caleb Williams he scrolls past on the NFL Network’s website. The Bears quarterback then reposted the video, which is roughly the outcome you would predict.
Coen told 1010 XL in Jacksonville on Thursday that the best part of his job is not having to manufacture motivation, because being ignored supplies it for free. He said he pulls up the site in front of his staff, looks for anything at all about his own players, and finds Williams instead. He delivered it as a joke rather than a shot, though the distinction tends to collapse by the time a clip travels.
Ben Johnson was asked about it on Friday and did not take the bait so much as redirect it. He pointed out that the Bears have been widely tagged as the league’s top regression candidate, which he considers motivation enough without borrowing anyone else’s, and said Williams has handled attention before and is not somebody he worries about on that front.
“All I’ll see is 40 pictures of Caleb Williams… and not a single thing about any of our players.” 😂
Liam Coen had a hilarious way of describing why he loves coaching the Jaguars on The Drill with Dan Hicken and Jeff Prosser.
🎥 WATCH NOW: https://t.co/E5etiiSE3n#DUUUVAL |… pic.twitter.com/idQZCvDMkK
— 1010 XL / 92.5 FM (@1010XL) July 30, 2026
#Bears HC Ben Johnson responds to Liam Coen name-dropping Caleb Williams:
“Well, we’re the No. 1 regression candidate, so I think we’ve got plenty of motivation ourselves. We’ve talked about Caleb in the past. He’s used to handling a lot of attention, so I’m not worried about… https://t.co/aILELUpdht pic.twitter.com/pHPVov1VrB
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) July 31, 2026
Why Johnson’s regression line is the sharper comeback
Both coaches are working the same lever from opposite ends. Coen is manufacturing an underdog posture for a team that went 13-4, which is a stretch, and Johnson is embracing a doubt narrative for a team that went 11-6 and advanced further in the playoffs than Jacksonville did. Neither is a real grievance, and both are useful in August, when there is nothing else to hand a locker room.
The regression label is not invented, though. Chicago improved by six wins in Johnson’s first year, and win-total jumps of that size historically pull back toward the middle.
Williams threw for 3,942 yards with 27 touchdowns and seven interceptions last season and graded as Pro Football Focus’ 16th-rated quarterback, a solid year rather than an unrepeatable one, which is exactly the profile that makes projection models nervous in either direction.
Johnson has spent camp pushing Williams on the same things he flagged in the spring, wanting quicker anticipation and better coverage recognition after post-snap reads became the focus once the pre-snap operation improved.
He has been effusive about the raw ability and specific about what is missing, which is a more useful posture than either coach’s media-day framing.
Williams is on this year’s Madden cover, which is its own answer to the question of why his photograph keeps appearing. The teams meet in Chicago in December. In the meantime, the attention gap Coen described is measurable: Williams was voted the 51st best player in the league on the NFL Top 100 this year, and Trevor Lawrence came in at 62.
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