Caleb Williams leads NFL in a category his critics won't be bothered to believe

Going into the season, Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson set a bold statistical goal for quarterback Caleb Williams.

"I told him I would love for him this season to complete 70% of his balls,"Johnson said. "So, you would like to think that over the course of practice that we're completing 70% or more, or that's hard to just magically arise in a game. It's a lofty goal, but it's one we're going to strive for. Because of that, we're going to use that as a benchmark and kind of work from there."

Williams, to his credit, did not shy away from some big goals for his second season, including one that's on the minds of every Bears' fan and analyst with one game to go in the season.

Entering Week 18 against the Detroit Lions, Williams is close to that thing people can't stop talking about. He's 270 yards from being the first 4,000-yard passer in Bears' history.

As for the 70 percent completion rate thing from July, that won't be happening this season. Williams' completion percentage (57.9 percent) with one game left is actually lower than it was last season, partially spurred by the second-highest bad throw percentage among qualified quarterbacks (21.9 percent), and the worst on-target throw percentage among those quarterbacks (68.8 percent).

That being said, Williams has also been affected by some shortcomings among his teammates. Regardless of the source (since drops can be subjective based on the source), Pro Football Reference or Pro Football Focus, Bears' pass catchers have among the highest number of drops and among the highest drop rates in the league.

Deeper data shows Caleb Williams has had a better season than it seems

To be fair to the Bears' pass catchers, a quarterback's inability to add or subtract velocity can turn an otherwise on-target pass into a drop that ends up being credited to the receiver. But PFF has Williams' adjusted completion percentage at 70.5 percent, tied for the third-most drops from his pass catchers (27).

Williams definitely has accuracy issues to hone, with too many missed throws he has to hit to reach the next level among his peers. But this year has not been as bad as it seems in that respect.

As revealed before Week17 and recalculated by Next Gen Stats heading into Week 18 (h/t to NFL Senior Researcher Tony Holzman-Escareno), Williams leads the league in passing yards lost due to drops this season.

That 370 yards lost to drops doesn't seem to take into account what yards after a catch could have been after a drop. Williams would presumably already have 4,000 passing yards with room to spare if a fair percentage of those credited drops were completions instead.

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For Williams' critics, or those who don't see the whole picture of his second season, he is just an inaccurate quarterback who has a long way to go to be better. But with some further refinement as a passer, and some shifts in which Bears' pass catchers have big roles, those critics are in line to be completely silenced by this time next season.