It’s difficult to understate the amount of hype Bears fans had entering their Week 1 matchup with the Vikings on Monday Night Football. For months they’ve been pitched the ultimate sales package, one that banked on Ben Johnson’s offensive brilliance, and came couched with the belief that he could do for Caleb Williams what he did with Jared Goff in Detroit to turn Chicago into not just a .500 team, but a contender in the NFC North.
They ended up getting a solitary quarter of unbridled optimism, followed by slight concern, and ended in the unmistakable feeling of inevitability. At the center of it all was second year quarterback Caleb Williams, who still isn’t putting things together — and it’s led to comparisons to the last quarterbacking disaster in Chicago.
It’s been a long time since there was a quarterback in the NFL as infuriating to watch as Caleb Williams. The man isn’t garbage, that much is clear. The athleticism is there, the playmaking ability occasionally shines, and it’s not like he’s stepping on the gridiron attempting throws that make zero sense, like some of the worst draft busts in history. However, something isn’t clicking — he just doesn’t get it. This was the 18th start in a row he keeps bashing his head into a wall trying to same things that made him a Heisman winner at USC, with a complete lack of understanding that it just won’t work in the NFL.
In watching Williams’ film there’s a problem that rears its head on almost every single snap, and that’s an unwillingness to climb the pocket. There isn’t a QB in the league right now who makes life more difficult for their offensive line than Caleb Williams, because he’s so insistent on dropping further and further back, then rolling out to attempt a pass — rather than simply filling the void left by his offensive linemen. A great example of this came in the second quarter, when the Bears were up 7-0.
Look at Williams’ depth and body positioning on this play. This screengrab came roughly 0.5 seconds after he reached the top of his drop, and so much is wrong with it. His chest is open downfield, and he’s not in a stable platform to drive the ball. His numbers should be completely opened up to the sideline, and given this protection he should step forward, then open up his chest as his drive the pass downfield. Instead he’s set up in a scrambling stance as his first instinct, then instead of stepping up he snaps his body into a sideways throwing motion.
This takes so long that by the time he’s ready to start going through his progression the protection is breaking down. The only option is to escape laterally and pick up three yards on a checkdown pass to Colston Loveland. The ability to escape and throw off-platform is impressive, but absolutely unnecessary. It’s the equivalent of taking 40 different steps to cook a steak, when it would have been as effective (and better) to just throw the thing on the grill.
Everything about how Caleb plays is out of sync with the situation around him. There are times he plays far too slow in the pocket and costs the Bears a play, then others where he plays much too fast and fails to allow a play to develop. This happened just a few plays earlier when Williams had perfect protection, days to throw, and instead of looking off the safety when Rome Odunze had inside leverage, he again took a short checkdown to rookie Kyle Monangai.
Caleb is already starting his throwing motion to the running back with his back turned. By the time he’s releasing the ball, the middle safety has stayed flat to cover D.J. Moore over the middle. All Williams needed to do was throw downfield over the safety’s head and it was a walk-in touchdown for Odunze, who turned his inside leverage into separation with the corner turning his hips to try and catch up.
It’s stuff like this that makes Williams so infuriating. He possesses every physical gift you want, but his mechanics and awareness just aren’t there. We’re not talking “rookie in the NFL” level mistakes either, but “redshirt freshman makes his first start” mistakes.
The only person Williams appears to trust on the football field is himself. If he had faith in any of his offensive line then he’d step into passes, if believed in his receivers he’d give more time for plays to develop. If the play isn’t 10 yards in front of his face, then Williams just isn’t interested in it — and that, coupled with his wonky mechanics have manifested themselves by having severe deep ball accuracy issues.
Williams is a ludicrously accurate passer on short routes, but finds himself as one of the worst young passers in 20 years when it comes to throwing deep. It’s simply not possible to accurately drive the ball downfield on a regular basis when you’re always scrambling and out of platform. Last season this was blamed on the offensive line a lot, and rightfully so — but Williams’ happy feet which cause him to take more steps backwards after his drop and then roll out, which doesn’t do him any favors. What might be a 12 yard pass downfield for most quarterbacks instantly becomes 17 yards or even 22 yards because of his depth, on the run no less.
This is not a sustainable way to play quarterback in the NFL. If we look at some of the great off-platform creators in the NFL, like Aaron Rodgers, or Patrick Mahomes — they’ll still only try these kind of throws a few times a game. For the majority they’re using solid mechanics to drive the ball downfield, and only rely on these kind of throws when absolutely neccesary.
Caleb Williams is doing it on almost every single down. However, when it’s necessary to make this kind of play and the only option is a lateral escape we see major flashes of brilliance like this throw to Odunze early in the game. There is literally no other option with the offensive line collapsing, and less-athletic quarterbacks would either throw the ball away, or try and scramble for a few yards. Instead he has the quickness to escape the edge rush and make a big throw.
Perhaps the most alarming element to all this is that even while the crowd was rocking and everything was sunshine and rainbows, this was still the Bears operating off their script. We hadn’t yet reached the point in the game where things are largely out of a coach’s hands and it becomes incumbent upon the quarterback to pool his knowledge from the game, the tendencies he’s seen, and mesh that with instincts to make a play when the game matters.
When that happened on Monday night we got this.
Williams didn’t step into his throw, didn’t square his shoulders to his target, and the result was a “vibes only” throw that was closer to the first row than his intended receiver.
This is what profoundly worried me about pairing Caleb Williams with a coach like Ben Johnson. They’re absolutely contradictory football talents. Johnson preaches mechanical brilliance, accuracy, and decision making. Williams is about “feel” and improvisation. Can this be fixed? Perhaps, but it’s a whole lot more doubtful now we’re past Week 1 than if these were mistakes Williams was making in training camp. Williams finished Week 1 as the least-accurate QB in the NFL.
At this point the only solution might be to break down Williams entirely to rebuild him. That would mean benching him, work on everything from the ground up, and hope he can return in November looking like a completely different quarterback. The problem is whether or not Williams has the fortitude or humility to accept that happening, and unless he does the Bears could be on a collision course with QB disaster again.
