Bear Digest

Caleb Williams Absorbs Another Bears Record He'd Rather Not Have

The NFL passing record Williams set on Sunday for rookies was probably much easier to enjoy than the NFL rookie record he set in the game.

Gene Chamberlain

Caleb Williams tries to beat the pass rush with a pass to the outside in the third quarter of Sunday's 38-13 loss.
Caleb Williams tries to beat the pass rush with a pass to the outside in the third quarter of Sunday's 38-13 loss. / Bob Kupbens-Imagn Images
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Caleb Williams was a record setter again on Sunday, although wasn't as much fun as the NFL rookie record he set Sunday in a seventh straight game without throwing an interception

Williams now owns the mark no Bears quarterback or offensive lineman wants to be associated with, following Sunday's 38-13 loss to the San Francisco 49ers.

The last sack in the game of Williams marked the 56th time he has been sacked. It broke a tie he had for the team record with Justin Fields from the 2022 season of 55. Jay Cutler's 52 sacks in their NFC championship game season of 2010 is third at 52 sacks.

Former Texans quarterback David Carr holds the NFL record with 76, so it would probably take quite a collapse by the Bears offensive line for Williams to hit that mark, if he could survive all the hits.

As bad as the 76 sacks allowed seem, it's not even close to the mark for sacks allowed by a team in a season. The Philadelphia Eagles gave up 104 sacks in 1986. Randall Cunningham absorbed 72 of those sacks, Ron Jaworski 22, Matt Cavanaugh nine and running back Keith Byars got sacked once while trying to pass.

The Giants' total of 85 last year is the second most. The Bears team record for sacks allowed is 66 in the 2004 season, with four different quarterbacks.

During one stretch of the game the Bears allowed sacks on four straight third downs.

"To me the common theme is all of us," interim coach Thomas Brown said Monday. "That’s probably not the response you were hunting up. But I think again, me being critical from a play-calling standpoint of how I sequence plays throughout the flow of the game. Trying to figure out how to stay a step ahead of the defense.

"Also, it all comes together in how we protect the quarterback, his rhythm and timing, pocket movement, when the ball is distributed–also us being able to win in the rhythm and timing so the ball can come out on time."

He blamed some of the third-down blocking issues on circumstances.

"I know it does get redundant at times, but it is the truth–when it comes to third-down efficiency it’s most of the time correlated to what you do on first and second down," Brown said.

Sacks allowed by linemen is a subjective statistic but Pro Football Focus examines game film closely and gave Braxton Jones and Coleman Shelton both two sacks allowed in Sunday's loss to a 49ers team that was without top edge rusher Nick Bosa. They also gave Matt Pryor blame for one of the sacks allowed.

Pryor's sack allowed tied him for the team lead on the year with six, according to PFF. Larry Borom also gave up six according to PFF, but did it on only 123 pass blocking reps while Pryor needed 492. Borom was inactivce for Sunday's loss.

Jones and Darnell Wright have allowed five on the year.

PFF has Pryor (80.1) and Jones (80.0) graded as the best Bears pass-blocking linemen on the season.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.