Bear Digest

Caleb Williams and Bears Offense Search for TDs and Answers

More struggles in the passing game by Caleb Williams in a road game and an inability to avoid negative plays led to a Bears game without a touchdown in a 29-9 loss.

Gene Chamberlain

Zaven Collins sacks Caleb Williams in the fourth quarter in Sunday's 29-9 Bears loss to Arizona.
Zaven Collins sacks Caleb Williams in the fourth quarter in Sunday's 29-9 Bears loss to Arizona. / Michael Chow/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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Two weeks ago Caleb Williams’ arc seemed obvious. He was trending upward, the Bears offense had found its groove.

The rut they hit against Washington became a grand canyon-sized gorge on Sunday in a 29-9 loss to the Arizona Cardinals.

“I wouldn't say taking a step back,” Williams said, in describing the offense.

It was more like a drop from 30,000 feet without the parachute, then.

“We've done, I mean, last week, you know, we did a couple good things and, you know, towards the end of the game, obviously we have to get that going early on,” Williams said. “But we're having these flashes and we got to find a way to keep the light on.”

It was lights out in the second half as he couldn’t move the ball past the Cardinals 40. Getting sacked six times didn’t help but his passing was erratic, as it has been in every road game the Bears played with the exception of the win over Jacksonville. And that wasn’t officially a road game.

The Bears offense went 3-for-14 on third down, inched out 241 yards and couldn’t complement the anemic passing game with 69 yards rushing on 23 carries, a 3.0 average.

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“This game's over,” Williams said. “Can't change this game, but we definitely can change the future.”

They’ll have to change something about their course on offense and his within the passing game. They might want to start by looking on the side of a milk carton for tight end Cole Kmet.

Williams could be surprised to find Kmet is right there where he always has been. But he didn’t get targeted with a pass for the second straight game.

Rome Odunze had his second 100-yard game with five. catches for 104 yards. Again Williams had difficulties finding Keenan Allen and completed just four for 36 yards, but Williams didn’t help with a third-down drop when he had a first down on the play.

DJ Moore had failed to go over 27 yards receiving in three of the previous four games but did it on Sunday. No one will be celebrating, though, as he had only 33 yards on just four catches.

When this sort of thing happened against Houston, it was against a good defense. But no one would confuse the Big Red's pass defense with the Legion of Boom. Arizona was 26th in pass defense, just like Washington's pass defense rated in the depths of the league before stopping Williams and the Bears.

“I mean, I think we got to keep keep growing, keep communicating,” Williams said. “I think, you know, for myself, I want to be better. I want to be able to help his team and I want to be able to help Chicago Bears reach their goals at the end of season, that we all have, that I've had that I'm going to keep having

“And so, yeah, I think we all got to do a better job putting ourselves in position.”

The position he found himself in too often Sunday was on his back, which led to the ankle injury he suffered on the last play. He shrugged it off, saying it wasn’t a problem. Better pass blocking would help and so would getting rid of the ball faster.

At one point, Williams was sacked three straight plays. Sacks are part of the problem Williams sees, but don’t forget penalties. They had an excellent first drive going and then had 15 yards in penalties and bogged down.

“Yeah, I think I think I think it starts from negative plays,” Williams said. “You know … I keep talking about it and we keep talking about we want to start fast, get the momentum going so that we can figure out ways to maintain it.

“And we would have negative plays. And that's including myself.”

It’s an offense in disarray.

It’s not going to be better until Williams is leading them back out of the chaos.

Twitter: BearsOnSI

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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.