The draft and free agency seemed to occupy every waking moment of the Chicago Bears consciousness.
Both are important, yet neither approaches the scope of what lies ahead.
Drafting players, signing players discarded or unwanted elsewhere and trading for more players pale in significance to what will be the true transformational moments of the Ben Johnson/Ryan Poles Chicago Bears regime.
Theory becomes reality when they start getting into classrooms at Halas Hall and when they begin to practice.
Johnson's role as advisor to his GM soon ends and his time coaching a team and, especially, one individual, will become the focus.
Here are clearly the most defining tasks ahead for the Chicago Bears, what will actually decide how well they manage to turn the franchise in its first year of a new coaching regime.
Unlike free agency, the draft and everything else, this is mostly about one player.
On a list of all the passers graded last year by Pro Football Focus, Caleb Williams ranked 45th out of 74. No quarterback who started more than 11 games graded out worse at passing than Williams. No QB who threw more than 450 passes graded worse than Williams, who threw 562.
Grades aside, the only passers more inaccurate (completion percentage) among those who threw at least 100 times were Jameis Winston, Bryce Young, Cooper Rush, Trevor Lawrence, Drew Lock, Jacoby Brissett, Michael Penix Jr., Spencer Rattler, Dorian Thompson-Robinson and Anthony Richardson.
Williams came to the Bears lauded nationally for his accuracy as a passer, particularly throwing deep.
What happened?
All the extraneous forces combined for a net effect, to be sure.
They couldn't pass block. They couldn't establish a consistent running game. The coaching and play calling was so poor they did something never done before and fired a head coach in the regular season.
All of this is undeniable, but Williams' own part in it all reflected poorly on his ability to handle adversity. He held the ball too long looking for big plays and didn't understand fast enough where his alternatives were on given plays.
When all of this is combined, what Johnson said about starting over with Williams and the offense takes on even more clarity.
"There are gonna be elements for the game we're really gonna focus on him getting better at," Johnson said.
This is good, because there were so many elements to the game that Williams was bad at as a rookie.
There are aspects of Ben Johnson's offense completely unlike anything Williams experienced last year and in college.
There is more under center than Williams experienced last year, in college and high school.
Williams just went through a full year running one offense under two different play callers and trying to do it to suit different people in an unsuccessful way.
Now they're basically gutting everything he learned last year and teaching him a completely new offense with unfamiliar concepts.
It's truly going to be like repeating his rookie year, except now he has played against NFL defenses for a year.
He's going to be learning this from an offensive coordinator in Declan Doyle, who was never been a quarterbacks coach much less an offensive coordinator. He's learning from a quarterbacks coach who has only been a coach two years, and then only an assistant QB coach.
When the Bears hired Press Taylor as a passing game coordinator there were those who wondered what that was all about.
It can't hurt having anyone with experience working with a younger QB somewhere on staff considering how little actual experience there is with this entire staff at getting inexperienced quarterbacks to understand an offense.
The Bears, as an organization, have not properly done this with a young passer since Jim McMahon, and then he spent much of his time healing instead of throwing.
It was obviously so long ago none of that is applicable.
They failed with Justin Fields and with Mitchell Trubisky.
By development, it's a reference to both knowing the offense and then applying its use against NFL defenses in games. There is some carryover because Williams did it last year. However, that experience was so bad it might be detrimental to the process ahead.
This QB development with a young passer is all on Johnson and he has never done it before.
Johnson took over as coordinator with Jared Goff in his seventh NFL season, and second season with the Lions. Johnson was a tight ends coach/quality control guy before coming to the Lions so he never did it elsewhere.
The Lions did not successfully develop their own young passer as a backup.
Hendon Hooker was supposed to be that project but he has thrown nine NFL passes and the Lions have been so unsuccessful getting him prepared to play that they had go get Teddy Bridgewater as backup, and then bring him back again as backup after he retired to be a coach.
Johnson addressed this several times when he first met with media, but until a coach is actually in charge as main on-field decision maker there is no telling how he'll handle this new position of authority.
Finally, there is the ability to relate directly to his players during the pressure of the NFL season.
Their last coach failed so miserably at this that his own players voted him the worst coach in the NFL in a players union poll.
Johnson seems like he can relate well now but what about when the pressure of decision making, of grooming a quarterback without successful experience doing it before, and of handling a full team all combine, and the team has already lost two straight tight games?
Does it become 10 straight?
These are the biggest questions facing the Bears.
Their answers in free agency or those they'll come up with in the draft did nothing to address these big issues, which all pertain directly to Johnson and to Williams.
