Bears’ plan to support Caleb Williams threatening to devolve into nightmare originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
HOUSTON, Texas — It has looked too familiar. Like a nightmare that you can’t escape.
There’s a young quarterback clad in orange and blue, the hopes of a city on his shoulders, under siege for 60 minutes. There are no receivers creating easy separation. The run game is non-existent. There’s just a young quarterback doing whatever he can to survive and give his team a chance to win.
Things were supposed to look different with Caleb Williams. But through two games, the Bears’ new-look offense has looked a lot like the type that has been destroying quarterbacks in Chicago for decades.
Williams has thrown for just 267 yards through two games, no touchdowns, and two interceptions. During Sunday night’s 19-13 loss to the Houston Texans, Williams was sacked seven times, hit 11, and pressured on 23 of 48 dropbacks. Williams was pressured 36 times, and non-Williams runners gained 1.6 yards per carry.
Last week, the Tennessee Titans’ defensive front mauled the interior of the Bears’ offensive line. On Sunday, Texans edge rushers Will Anderson Jr. and Danielle Hunter had left tackle Braxton Jones and right tackle Darnell Wright in the torture chamber.
There were very few easy throws to get Williams in rhythm, the play-calling was suspect, and the adjustments either didn’t occur or didn’t work.
Either way, it has taken just two weeks for the “best situation ever for a No. 1 overall pick” to look like a toxic safety hazard that could damage Williams’s development instead of accelerating his takeoff.
“When it finally connect and well in the same cylinder, it’s going to be good,” wide receiver DJ Moore said after the loss. “Right now, we’re building a puzzle together. Until we get that puzzle fully complete, it’s going to be an up-and-down road.”
Every member of the Bears’ offense knew it would take time for Williams to get comfortable and find a groove. But the product the Bears’ offense has put on the field in their first two games is troubling. There has been zero vertical passing game, the protection is abysmal, and the mental errors and missed assignments are piling up.
The Bears’ offensive ineptitude doesn’t fall at Williams’ feet. Sunday was his second career NFL game. The whole idea behind what the Bears built was that it would make it easy for Williams to settle in, steady himself, and start to grow.
So far, none of that has been true, and it will be hard to fix it overnight. The Bears don’t have one thing to clean. Everything needs to get better and fast.
“We got to be better around him,” tight end Cole Kmet said after the loss.
“There’s a lot of cohesiveness to get going. … We got to tighten this thing up quickly if we want to go where we want to go this year.”
Williams will improve as the reps pile up. But his development won’t take off if the rest of the Bears’ offense doesn’t support him in the way that he needs.
That starts with an offensive line that was the weak link in the Bears’ grand Williams development plan being able to keep pressure off him for longer than one second. That starts with offensive coordinator Shane Waldron not only devising a plan to get Williams comfortable early but also finding a way to best utilize all the Bears’ weapons. (There was so much DeAndre Carter and Gerald Everett on Sunday it would have made the 2022 Chargers blush.)
There needs to be more schemed plays for Moore, more attacking the seams with Kmet, and more moving the pocket.
A lot was expected from this Bears’ offense. The hype was through the roof entering the season.
But through two games, it looks like your normal, everyday, run-of-the-mill Chicago offense.
“We got a lot to work on,” Kmet said. “The reality of the NFL is kind of setting in a little for us offensively. We got to regroup here.”
The regrouping has to begin immediately and it’s a task that will fall squarely on the shoulders of Waldron and the Bears’ veteran leaders.
The time for bolstering the offensive line has long come and gone. This is the unit that will be in front of Williams, for the most part, for the next 15 games. As it is operating right now, it’s not a tenable situation for a young quarterback.
The Texans ate the Bears’ offensive line up with stunts and games all night Sunday. Hunter and Anderson punked Jones and Wright.
Williams paid the price Sunday, and he will continue to do so if Waldron can’t figure out a way to help Williams and the protection with his scheme.
The slow-developing deep pocket drops? Throw those out. The RPO where you let one of the best young pass rushers come unblocked? Junk it.
It has to be back to the drawing board for this Bears’ offense.
The Texans blitzed Williams on 41.7 percent of his dropbacks Sunday, per Next Gen Stats. He went 3-for-12 for 15 yards and an interception against the blitz. He was 20-for-25 for 159 and a pick when not blitzed.
Expect Williams to see a lot more blitzes going forward until he and the Bears prove they have a plan to beat them.
Run the ball? Bootlegs? Nakeds? Quick hitters to get a drive going?
The Bears left Houston with no idea why things aren’t clicking or what pieces need to fall into place for the slop fest they’ve trotted out over the past two weeks to turn into a respectable attack that will help Williams and not hinder his early development.
“I don’t really know,” wide receiver Rome Odunze said after the loss when asked why the offense isn’t working. “But we’re close.”
That better be the case. The answers need to come quickly. If they don’t, the Bears’ highly lauded plan to support Williams could quickly disintegrate.
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