CHICAGO — Never mind the Bears‘ season, is Caleb Williams‘ rookie season even salvageable?
Judging by Sunday’s loss to the Packers: yes.
Green Bay has now won 11 straight over Chicago — a record for either team in the 104-year rivalry — but Week 11’s 20-19 thriller was their most entertaining matchup in recent memory.
The Bears were in a tailspin entering this latest clash, and though there are no real moral victories, playing competitively against the team that is in their heads more than any other, and coming that close to finally beating them, is all encouraging given the week the organization has had.
Chicago fired an offensive coordinator midseason for the first time in franchise history last week. After a Week 7 bye, the offense went through a dramatic regression that resembled its output before the team’s three-game win streak. The Bears again looked discombobulated. Their No. 1 overall pick was holding the ball too long. Their offensive line wasn’t holding up among a rash of injuries. There was no run game to speak of.
There were also no adjustments made to account for Williams being flustered, or the offensive line being hurt. It also didn’t seem like then-offensive coordinator Shane Waldron knew when and how to use both D’Andre Swift and Roschon Johnson, two running backs with drastically different skill sets.
We knew there were plays that worked. We saw it in the three games preceding the bye. The offense was capable of rhythm and timing and explosive plays. That was good news when it came time to make a change.
New OC Thomas Brown, previously the passing game coordinator, was going to still have to work within the playbook. There’s no changing that at this stage of the season. But within it, he could hopefully pare down the game plan with better-fitting plays. In game, he would have total control over the flow and the communication of it all. Williams said afterward Sunday that Brown was especially prompt with getting onto the headset once a play was over and the communication was switched back on. It cuts off 15 seconds before a play starts and resumes when that play is over. It sounds like that urgency was new for Williams.
The preparation was also different in the week leading up to the Packers game.
“I think it was more about getting us going,” said tight end Cole Kmet, who finally saw production this week to the tune of three catches for 42 yards. “TB [Thomas Brown] to start the week listed all of the things that we needed to do for this game and really nothing had to do with the opponent we were playing. I thought that was pretty cool to see. I thought guys really bought into that this week and it showed on the field for the most part. … I thought we did a lot of things that we can bring over week to week.
The changes made were evident on the field, and not just because Kmet was actually involved. Williams was getting the ball out faster than he ever has, recording the quickest time to throw of his career at 2.42 seconds, according to Next Gen Stats. He averaged 0.28 EPA per quick pass while facing his lowest pressure rate of the season at 20.5%.
Williams also seemed more willing to use his legs, which he attributed to just recognizing more lanes open rather than an intentionality to run the football himself. Still, there were designed runs or run options for him that helped him pick up five first downs on the ground. Williams set a career high in rushing yards with 70 on both scrambles and designed runs.
Then there was the movement and fluidity of the offense — more window dressing, if you will. After recording the third-fewest snaps in the NFL that incorporated pre-snap motion through the first 10 weeks with a total of 224, the Bears recorded the fourth-most motion snaps of any team through the conclusion of Sunday’s games with 47. That’s 21% of their previous 10-week total in a single week.
But what does that actually mean? How does that benefit the offense and Williams, in particular?
“Pre-snap motion is either they get people displaced for runs and lanes and blocking assignments, or if it’s in the passing game or anything like that, whether it’s a play action, whether it’s no play action, things like that, just a drop back, sometimes it gives you leverage,” Williams said Sunday. “Then sometimes it also mixes up people’s eyes, safeties and things like that, to be able to hit explosives. To be able to gain easy access throws with maybe DBs, backing off, once you get a motion going their way, maybe a fast motion or a slow motion going their way. They’ll back off and get a free access for five yards, maybe more, with the type of guys we have. So, those motions help us.”
It’s also more indicative of the offensive tree the system stems from. Both Waldron and Brown worked with Sean McVay in Los Angeles. A calling card of the system is how much it utilizes motion in the wake of not varying personnel groupings as much. McVay’s offense in Los Angeles almost exclusively uses 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end, three wide receivers) but it adds a lot of window dressing to toy with defenses in the way Williams detailed. That had been lacking in Chicago, despite the offense not varying its personnel groupings a ton. Week 11 saw the aforementioned uptick in motion but simplified the groupings, utilizing 11 personnel on 59 of 72 offensive plays, the highest rate in the league.
That’s the perfect example of simplifying things while also staying creative.
And it helped Williams tremendously.
His stat line was still modest from a scoring standpoint, but he completed 23 of 31 pass attempts for 231 yards. Williams was sacked just once before being taken down for a loss on consecutive plays on the last drive. He responded by connecting with fellow rookie Rome Odunze on third-and-19 and fourth-and-3, ultimately setting up a 46-yard field goal attempt that was within Cairo Santos‘ range and once again put the Bears in position for a walk-off win.
“That’s great. That’s real quarterbacking at a high level,” Bears coach Matt Eberflus said. “For him to make that connection with the guy he was drafted with, I think, is special. Really nice by those guys. Again, it takes protection. I know we took two sacks to start that, but again, it’s about overcoming adversity, and that was on display in that drive.”
That perseverance on Williams’ part demonstrates why he should end up being just fine. The talent is there, and at this point, a successful season hinges on Williams’ development and his development alone. He’s going to need such resilience when the Bears inevitably make a coaching change at the end of the season, the franchise repeating the same cycle of its previous two first-round quarterback selections. The only hope of breaking it is Williams himself.
Judging from Sunday, that hope looks more than justified.
Carmen Vitali is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. Carmen had previous stops with The Draft Network and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. She spent six seasons with the Bucs, including 2020, which added the title of Super Bowl Champion (and boat-parade participant) to her résumé. You can follow Carmen on Twitter at @CarmieV.
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