Bears QB Caleb Williams hoping to maintain momentum despite changes

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Bears QB Caleb Williams hoping to maintain momentum despite changes

2026-04-21 05:15 Last Updated At：05:20

LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — Quarterback Caleb Williams assessed a changed situation with the Chicago Bears and said he feels prepared for a second year under Ben Johnson’s tough coaching.

In their first year together, the Bears won the NFC North for the first time since 2018, but there’s work to do, Williams said Monday as the team reported for the start of offseason conditioning work.

“I would say for me, personally, it’s a big year in the sense that I get to grow more, I get to step into the role that I spoke about for the past two years,” Williams said. “That’s important for me.

“I’m really excited. I’ve been itching to get back, honestly, since the (playoff loss to the Rams) and trying not to text Ben too much. ... I’m excited to be around the guys. Been waiting on this day to get back to see the new faces and obviously some of the guys that have been here.”

The changes include the loss of center Drew Dalman to an unexpected retirement and the trade of wide receiver DJ Moore in a salary cap-saving move. Moore caught two touchdown passes to beat the Packers in December and in the playoffs capped Williams' rise to prominence after rookie struggles in 2024.

When it ended, though, it was a miscommunication between Moore and Williams on a pass route that led to the interception the Rams needed to drive for the winning field goal.

“DJ is a pro,” Williams said. “He’s been that since he's been in the league. And so, on the football side of it, obviously you’re going to miss him out there making plays for you, for me and for the team. But on the other side of the football side, you do understand that there is a business side to it. You have to roll with the punches. I don’t have those choices to make."

Dalman’s retirement led to a Bears trade for New England center Garrett Bradbury. Williams will be taking snaps from his third Bears center in as many seasons.

Williams thinks his experience within Johnson’s offense will make the center transition easier than last year, when they struggled at training camp and in offseason work with simple cadence issues.

“Now that I’ve been in it, being able to communicate, being able to speak about the offense and cadence and things like that, it’s, I think, that’s a jump-start,” Williams said. “But you know it all comes down to reps, seeing how he snaps it and questioning him, him questioning me, us talking, communicating and then when we get out there just having the reps like I said.”

Ultimately, Williams has confidence he’ll take another step forward because of the connection with Johnson.

“Coaching matters,” Williams said. “That’s something we always say. And then you have to have the person on the other side to receive the coaching. I think I did well last year.”

Tight end Cole Kmet saw the improvement from Johnson’s impact but also saw Williams maturing.

“I just go back to last year, his improvement with him as a quarterback and his etiquette in the huddle in terms of giving the play call, making calls at the line of scrimmage. All those pre-snap things that maybe fans don’t view as the, as the ‘sexy thing.’ Those are the things that he got really, really good at throughout the course of the season,” Kmet said.

Williams met with Johnson when the season ended and recalled Johnson’s words.

"It’s going to be more difficult, I’m going to push you more,” Williams said he was told. “And my answer is ‘Yes sir. Let’s do it.’ You know what I mean? I have a goal. He has a goal. And those align with each other.

“And it’s making sure we get to that end game. He is going to push me. I am going to push myself and I’m going to push my teammates. And he’s going to push my teammates and things like that. We’re going to find ways to get better.”

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Louisiana community is struggling to understand after man killed 8 children

SHREVEPORT, La. (AP) — A stunned Louisiana city struggled to come to grips Monday with the massacre of eight children carried out by a father who was separating from his wife and used an assault-style weapon despite a 2019 felony firearms conviction.

The violence reverberated across Shreveport a day after the nation’s deadliest mass shooting in two years. Schools brought in counselors for the victims' young classmates and community leaders called for a city-wide reckoning on stopping domestic violence.

“We can not afford to wait until the next crisis,” said Caddo Parish Sheriff Henry Whitehorn. “We owe it to the eight children who were lost.”

The shooter, identified as Shamar Elkins, killed seven of his children and another child, police said. His wife and her sister also were shot and wounded.

Elkins had voluntarily checked into a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in January for just over a week, said his brother-in-law, Troy Brown, who lived in the house with his wife, Keosha Pugh, and was at work during the attack. Elkins appeared “better when he came home” and seemed fine a day before the shooting, Brown said.

“All I know is he just snapped,” Brown told the AP. “If I wouldn’t have been at work, he was going to kill everybody in the house and that includes me."

Brown's wife, who made a series of frantic calls for help when the shooting started, and their 12-year-old daughter escaped through the home's roof, he said. His wife broke her pelvis after falling, he said.

“She said she was running for her life,” said Lionel Pugh, an uncle of the two women shot. “The only ones he didn’t kill was the ones who got away.”

Elkins died after fleeing and a police pursuit. It was not clear whether he was killed by officers who fired or from a self-inflicted gunshot, Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith said.

Officials said the children who died — three boys and five girls — ranged in age from 3 to 11 years old.

Elkins and his wife, identified by family members as Shaneiqua Elkins, were separating and had been due in court Monday, said Crystal Brown, a cousin of a woman shot in the attack. She said the couple had been arguing about the separation before the shooting.

Family members described Shaneiqua Elkins as a doting mother, who celebrated her children’s success in school and carefully dressed them before family events.

“She raised those kids right,” Pugh said. “They were the center of her universe.”

While the shooter did not appear to have a long criminal history, court records showed Elkins was placed on probation in 2019 after pleading guilty to illegal use of weapons. In that case, Elkins fired five rounds at a vehicle and told police that someone inside it had pulled a gun on him, according to a police report.

Based on Louisiana law, a person convicted of certain violent felonies — including illegal use of weapons — are banned from having a gun for at least 10 years after completing their sentence and probation.

Authorities said Monday that how and when Elkins got the gun is being investigated.

Louisiana, a reliably red state, has expanded access to guns in recent years. For years, Democrats in Louisiana have proposed bills to tighten gun control — or at least put “red flag” measures in place. But Republicans have routinely blocked such legislation.

Investigators were not aware of other domestic violence issues involving Elkins, said police spokesperson Chris Bordelon.

Elkins had served in the Louisiana National Guard from 2013 to 2020, said guard spokesperson Lt. Col. Noel Collins. Elkins held the rank of private and had no deployments, Collins said.

Authorities said the shooting erupted before dawn at two homes.

Elkins shot a woman in a neighborhood south of downtown, and opened fire a few blocks away at the home where the children were targeted, police said. Elkins' nephew was among the slain children, according to the Caddo Parish coroner’s office.

One of the victims, 5-year-old Braylon Snow, was getting ready for preschool graduation next month, said Laurance Guidry, president and CEO of Caddo Community Action Agency, which runs the Head Start program where Braylon was a student.

“They have the cap and gowns just like you would have when you were graduating from high school,” Guidry said.

Mourners lit candles for the victims Sunday night in a nearby parking lot.

“It just makes you take your children and hug them and hold them and tell them how much you love them because you just don’t know,” said Kimberlin Jackson, who attended the vigil and is an advocate at the Head Start program where one of the victims was a student. She said the last time she saw him was Friday.

Francine Monro Brown, a cousin of Shaneiqua Elkins, said she would often see the children playing in the yard on Sunday mornings when she drove past the house on her way to church.

“Happy children, joyful children. Shaneiqua is a great mother, She provided a great home for the kids,” Brown said as she stood near a growing memorial of stuffed teddy bears, flowers and pink and blue balloons.

Betty Pugh, another cousin of Shaneiqua Elkins, said she was always with her children. “That was the way we were taught: to love our kids, to take care of our kids. And that’s what she did,” Pugh said.

The mayor of Shreveport, a city of about 180,000 residents in northwestern Louisiana, called it one of the city's worst days.

The shooting was the deadliest in the U.S. since January 2024, when eight people were killed in a Chicago suburb, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.

Brook reported from New Orleans. Contributing were Associated Press reporters Gerald Herbert in Shreveport; Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas; Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia; John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio; and Jake Offenhartz in New York.