Caleb Williams and the Bears — after hitting the ‘reset button’ — get back to work at Halas Hall

“It was one of the harder years, I’d say, to step away for a little bit,” Williams said. “And so I think I found a little path in there at some point, but it took me a little bit to get over the season.”

As of Monday, all systems are go. The offseason program — and Year 2 under Johnson — is underway. The NFL draft begins Thursday, and the Bears will add their rookie class to the mix soon.

In terms of on-field work, the first phase of the offseason program is limited to strength and conditioning activities. The workload will ramp up in the coming weeks.

A year ago, Williams made it clear he wanted to be coached hard. He didn’t want Johnson to hold anything back, and the first-year coach definitely didn’t go easy on his quarterback.

Now Williams wants Johnson to keep his foot on the gas. He said Johnson told him during their exit meeting in January that he planned to push Williams even more.

Williams was all for it.

“I have a goal, he has a goal and they align with each other,” Williams said. “It’s making sure that we get to that end (goal). And so he’s going to push me, I’m going to push myself, I’m going to push my teammates, he’ll push my teammates.”

Tight end Cole Kmet said Williams’ improvement over the course of last season in terms of managing the offense, communicating in the huddle and making pre-snap calls at the line of scrimmage was night and day from the quarterback’s rookie season in 2024.

“All those pre-snap things that maybe (the media) or fans don’t view as the sexy thing,” Kmet said. “Like, those are the things that he got really, really good throughout the course of the season. And it really helps everybody, all 10 other guys.”

The Bears are in a good place to hit the ground running this spring. The returning players already know what Johnson expects from the offense. There will be tweaks and new wrinkles, but the Bears aren’t in a position like they were a year ago, when they had to learn everything from scratch.

That’s especially important for the play caller and quarterback. Johnson and Williams spent all of last year learning to think alike. The hope is Year 2 will take things to another level.

“It was good for me to be able to see, to be able to feel, to be able to go out there and win games — but that wasn’t my goal,” Williams said. “That’s not where I want to be. I want to be the best. I want to go win. I want to be, as we call it, a world champion. A Super Bowl champion.”

The Super Bowl is a long way off, but the work starts now.