LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — Being on the cover of “Madden NFL 27” and becoming more of a national celebrity after leading the Chicago Bears to seven comeback wins last season have failed to turn the head of quarterback Caleb Williams.
At least that's what Williams believes, and as Chicago's minicamp ended Thursday, the third-year quarterback said there are good reasons for it. Possibly the main one is his coach, Ben Johnson.
“There’s so much to unlock, there’s so much to get better at, there’s so much left of ball for me and us and accolades that we’ll have as a team and things like that,” Williams said Thursday.
"And then having a good support system around me, having Ben and my teammates and things like that I got to look in the face and make sure I’m doing the right thing every single day to accomplish our goal.”
Johnson’s tough love last year in training camp and the offseason helped Williams transition well to a new offense in his second season despite a poor 58.1% completion rate. Going through last year with Johnson has the Bears QB feeling miles ahead of where the team started in 2025 with a season-opening loss to the Vikings.
“It’s a hell of a lot more fun for me than it was last year just because it was — I was saying it to (running backs Eric Studesville), ‘I feel like I was drowning trying to breathe or stay alive and wait for a boat to come around last year,’” Williams said. “Now this year it’s being able to start where we finished last year, play calls and words and verbiage and speak the same language and now it’s being able to grow more from an earlier stage than maybe doing it a little bit earlier in the season or halfway through the season, speaking on things that really help throughout the year.
“That’s the advantage.”
Johnson has been giving Williams daily letter grades during the offseason. The main goal is for him to improve his accuracy, which fell well short of last season's announced goal of a 70% completion rate.
“Ball placement, being able to put the ball in the best position for the wide receivers, first starts with a completion and then from there you grow in the confidence from completing the ball, completion, completion, completion, and then it grows to, how can I place the ball better for these guys in these situations and moments throughout the games and practices?” Williams said. “It starts in practice. It starts with the mindset of that, and then from there you keep growing.
“Another thing for me is just always getting better with procedure, being able to see defenses pre-snap and having an idea of what they’ll be in or if I need to make an adjustment. It’s always going to be those couple things for me.”
How does Williams’ coach think he’s he doing at all of this?
“It’s been OK,” Johnson said.
Johnson gave every player three points of emphasis for the summer before they left Halas Hall. He didn’t want to share exactly what they were, but it’s not difficult to imagine Williams’ are targeted toward accuracy.
Johnson also is not worried about Williams getting caught up in everything going on in his life off the field, like being the Madden cover boy.
“Well, it goes back to my first conversations I’ve had with Caleb and those were he wants to win here in Chicago and he wants to win Super Bowls,” Johnson said. “That’s really his motivating factor. He’s been very clear and consistent with that message over the last year and a half that I’ve gotten to know him.”
Williams called his relationship with Johnson a reason he stays grounded and has progressed.
“I think getting to the point now there’s times where he’ll be saying something and it’s full agreeance and kind of finish his sentence on some of these things on his mentality and how he wants to win, how he wants to play and who our identity is going to be and being able to build towards that,” Williams said. “He’s obviously a lot more mature than me. He’s older than me by many years.
“So he brings a lot of wisdom to me. He notices things that I may not notice in the moment or things like that. So his information, his knowledge, his wisdom and things like that, it goes a long way for me and I’m 110 percent in on whatever he says.”
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams works on the field during the NFL football team's practice in Lake Forest, Ill., Tuesday, June 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams throws a ball during the NFL football team's practice in Lake Forest, Ill., Wednesday, June 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court declined to let Alabama proceed with a nitrogen gas execution Thursday after a lower court ruled that the method is unconstitutional.
The justices decided not to lift an injunction blocking the state from carrying out the nation’s ninth execution by nitrogen gas. The decision spared death row inmate Jeffery Lee, 49, from being put to death by nitrogen that night.
A spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Corrections said the execution was off for the evening and the state would not try another method.
The high court voted 6-3 and did not explain its reasoning. Three of the conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch — said they would grant Alabama’s request to lift the injunction and let the execution go forward.
“While I am disappointed the Supreme Court did not allow the state to proceed with Lee’s chosen method of execution, I remain committed to ensuring that justice is ultimately served for his victims,” Gov. Kay Ivey said.
The ruling capped an extraordinary legal back-and-forth over the humaneness of the execution method.
Lee filed a lawsuit challenging Alabama’s protocol as a violation of the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and U.S. District Judge Emily Marks ruled the method constitutional in May.
But a three-judge panel from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed her decision Monday, saying the three minutes it could take for an inmate to lose awareness is an “intolerable” time frame “given the suffering that would likely take place under Alabama’s nitrogen hypoxia protocol.”
Marks reevaluated the case and ruled again Tuesday saying Lee had shown “that the protocol constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.” The state appealed to the Supreme Court.
“If that ruling stands, it would be unprecedented in American history. Not only does it portend the first-ever permanent ban on a legislatively enacted method, but it would expand the concept of cruelty well beyond the bounds of the Eighth Amendment,” lawyers with the Alabama Attorney General’s Office wrote.
Lee’s lawyers asked the high court to keep the execution on hold, saying in a response that Alabama was asking it to intervene at the eleventh hour “to allow an execution that has been found unconstitutional to proceed.”
Prison officials said Lee did not request a final meal Thursday but had potato chips, Skittles, water and a Sprite in the hours ahead of his possible execution.
Marks did not block the state from executing Lee with one of the other approved methods, the electric chair or lethal injection. It is unclear how quickly the state could switch, however.
Alabama began using nitrogen gas to carry out some executions in 2024. The method involves strapping a respirator to a person’s face and replacing breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death from lack of oxygen.
Nitrogen has been used in eight executions in the United States — seven times in Alabama and once in Louisiana. Lee was scheduled to be the ninth.
During the previous Alabama nitrogen executions, the inmates shook, pulled at the restraints and exhibited labored breathing. During the state’s last execution by nitrogen gas, 30 minutes elapsed between Anthony Boyd exhibiting signs of being impacted by the gas and state officials closing the curtain to the viewing room to signal the execution was complete.
The state has maintained that the method is constitutional and causes no more suffering than other execution methods.
Lee, who is currently housed at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, was convicted of two counts of capital murder for killing Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson while robbing a pawnshop on Dec. 12, 1998.
Prosecutors said Lee entered Jimmy’s Pawnshop with a sawed-off shotgun and shot Ellis, the owner, and Thompson, an employee.
A jury voted 7-5 to give Lee a sentence of life imprisonment. However a judge overrode that and sentenced him to death.
Alabama ended the practice of judicial override in 2017 and no longer allows a judge to disregard a jury’s sentencing decision in death penalty cases.
Bestselling author John Grisham called on Gov. Kay Ivey to honor the jury's decision and commute Lee's sentence to life without parole.
“The practice of a judge overriding a jury was declared unconstitutional and so indefensible that Alabama itself abolished it in 2017,” Grisham said in a statement. “Jeffery Lee’s jury made its decision, the Alabama Legislature later agreed that juries, not judges, should decide life or death sentences.”
This undated photo provided by the Alabama Department of Corrections on Thursday, June 11, 2026, shows Jeffery Lee, who was sentenced to death for killing two people during a 1998 robbery at a pawn shop. (Alabama Department of Corrections via AP)
Protesters gather outside the Capitol in Montgomery, Ala., on Monday, June 8, 2026, to oppose an upcoming execution in Alabama. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler)
This undated photo from the Alabama Department of Corrections shows Jeffery Lee, who was sentenced to death for killing two people during a 1998 robbery at a pawn shop. (Alabama Department of Corrections via AP)
Abraham Bonowitz, of the group Death Penalty Action, leads a demonstration outside the Capitol in Montgomery, Ala., on Monday, June 8, 2026, to oppose an upcoming execution in Alabama. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler)
