CHICAGO — Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams may have avoided the worst-case scenarios after injuring his right hamstring Sunday, though coach Ben Johnson said Monday that Williams might miss “some time.”

Johnson declared Williams “week to week” but did not rule out the possibility that Williams could play in Week 3 against the Philadelphia Eagles on “Monday Night Football” at Soldier Field.

At the same time, Johnson said he does not expect Williams to participate in practice this week in preparation for the Eagles game.

“He’s, right now, working through every avenue that he’s got available to get back on track here,” Johnson said. “We’ll see what that looks like.

“Here’s what I know: This guy’s a little bit different than the average human being. I said that (Sunday) night, I’ll double down on that. He gets back — he has in the past — a lot faster than what people can anticipate, so I’m not putting a timeline on this. We’re going to say week to week.

“He’s going to attack this with everything that he knows. He’s got a great team around him, both inside and outside of this building, and we’ll see where it goes from there.”

Speaking earlier Monday with Bears radio play-by-play voice Jeff Joniak on WMVP-AM 1000, Johnson said Williams “will likely miss some time.” Asked by Joniak if the Bears dodged a bullet, Johnson said: “Potentially, potentially. We’ll see.”

That would be great news for the Bears (1-1) after what appeared to be a concerning scene late in Sunday’s 9-3 loss to the Minnesota Vikings at Soldier Field.

On first-and-goal from the 6-yard line, Williams rolled out to his left and initially looked to throw, then took off running. Vikings outside linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel chased from behind and swiped at Williams’ feet, narrowly missing.

An instant later, Williams slid to the ground, seemingly untouched, and rolled over several times in pain. The Bears training staff helped him off the field, and Williams later rode a cart from the sideline to the locker room. He gave the fans a thumbs-up on his way up the tunnel.

After the game, he was spotted walking on his own without crutches.

The Bears came up empty on that drive after a blocked 23-yard field goal, and despite a push in the final minutes, backup quarterback Tyson Bagent couldn’t pull off the comeback against the Vikings.

After the loss, much of the focus was on the starting quarterback’s health.

One Chicago-area orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine physician with a subspecialty in soft-tissue injuries noted that determining a timeline to return for athletes with hamstring injuries can be “more of an art than a science.”

“It just kind of depends on what they see in the training room, how he’s performing on the field, what the pain level’s like, what the strength is like,” said Dr. Shane Nho of Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush. “Obviously they don’t want to risk putting him back in too early.”

Hamstring injuries typically fall into one of three categories based on how much the muscle tears. A Grade 1 injury is more of a pull or overstretching of the muscle. Those typically can require between one and three weeks of recovery time, according to Nho, who serves as a team physician for the Bulls and White Sox.

Grade 2 is a partial tear of the muscle fibers, typically less than 50% of the muscle, and can be more like six to eight weeks of recovery time. Grade 3 is a more serious tear of the muscle and could require three months to recover.

If Williams is “week to week,” as Johnson said, it would seem to suggest his injury is not Grade 3.

Nho said an athlete with a Grade 1 or Grade 2 hamstring injury typically should spend the days immediately afterward trying to reduce inflammation by resting, applying ice or cold compressions and taking anti-inflammatories.

“Getting the trainers to really work it out,” Nho said. “Sometimes they might do other modality, just kind of get the muscle going, decrease the inflammation. This week, mostly work with the training staff, medical staff, just to get the inflammation down.

“If he looks really good, he may start practicing. It’s a combination of imaging and how he feels. If he’s like, ‘Look, I feel great,’ they may be hard-pressed to totally keep him out. But we just don’t know exactly how bad it is.”

Nho suggested fans are right to interpret the fact Williams walked out of the locker room without crutches as a good sign.

“If he was really in a ton of pain, you’d see him on crutches just to, conservatively, take the weight off, get the inflammation down,” Nho said. “So everything seems to be optimistic so far.”

Williams has some familiarity with this injury. During his Heisman Trophy season at USC in 2022, he injured his left hamstring during the Trojans’ loss to Utah in the Pac-12 championship game. He played in USC’s bowl game a month later. His current injury is in his right leg.

Williams never has missed a start in his NFL career, spanning 36 regular-season games and two playoff games.

Still, it would be somewhat surprising if he were to play in Week 3 unless he practices in some capacity this week. If Williams doesn’t play, Bagent would be in line to make his fifth NFL start and his first since 2023.

While Johnson was “somewhat encouraged” by the initial report from the team’s training staff, he’s also not likely to put his quarterback on the field before he’s fully recovered.

“We’ll make sure that he’s ready to go,” Johnson said.

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