Bear Digest

Caleb Williams Starting to Carry Bears After 'Superman' Act

Analysis: With a two-touchdown effort and 340 yards passing, Caleb Williams made a statement about his development in the 30-27 overtime loss to Minnesota.

Gene Chamberlain

Caleb Williams beats the Vikings pass rush to deliver a strike in the fourth quarter of Sunday's 30-27 Bears loss in overtime.
Caleb Williams beats the Vikings pass rush to deliver a strike in the fourth quarter of Sunday's 30-27 Bears loss in overtime. / Daniel Bartel-Imagn Images
In this story:

Not too long ago everyone saw Caleb Williams’ lack of growth holding back the Bears defense, their special teams and their offense.

Times have changed.

After Williams put up a second straight strong effort behind the offensive play calling of Thomas Brown Sunday, the 30-27 loss in overtime to the Minnesota Vikings almost appears an afterthought to what they actually gained.

Now Williams is the surging passer who nearly pulled out a hopeless cause in the last minute, with help from Vikings bungling on an onside kick. And the Bears defense can’t stop teams when it counts. As for the special teams, they’ve become a joke.

The thing about scaring the daylights out of the Vikings was, like last week with Green Bay, this is a legitimate opponent. He’s not beating up on Jacksonville or Carolina.

“They're a great defense,” Williams said. “They're No. 1 in turnovers, all these different categories. I think the biggest thing was being able to be decisive, the biggest thing was having answers whether it was alerts or high routes, making a few checks. Sometimes with those, they'll get you. Sometimes being incomplete. Sometimes you'll make a check and they'll make their checks. You just have to live with it.

“From there, you go out there and they make a play, you make a play. It goes back and forth with a defense like that. You just got to stay in the game, stay right there levelheaded. From there, it's going to come down to the end of the game, which we knew it was.”

Williams played the chess game well until overtime. He led three scoring drives on the last three possessions, hitting DJ Moore with a 10-yard TD pass with 7:22 to go, then leading the drive to Keenan Allen’s 1-yard catch with 22 seconds remaining.

One last drive was left after Johnny Mundt had the onside kick go off his leg and Williams hit the 27-yarder over the middle to Moore to set up the tying 48-yard field goal to force overtime. Williams 32-of-47 effort for 340 yards with two touchdown passes and a 103.1 passer rating was the type of thing he showed he could accomplish last week against Green Bay, as well. But in overtime, it all went bad when he took a sack, they were hit with a delay-of-game penalty and a third-down throw came up short. The Vikings took it and drove for the win.  

It still couldn’t diminish what Williams has done in two weeks with coordinator Thomas Brown calling plays: 55 of 78, 571 yards, two TDs for a 99.89 passer rating. It pushed his passer rating for the year up to 84.9 and improved his completion percentage to 62.6%.

“He has a certain aura to him that he just allows you to play free,” Williams said of Brown. “He knows what he wants. You know he knows what he wants. Whether it's checks, alerts, all of that, we still have a bunch of those things, all these different things.

“Being able to play free. I think like last game, throughout the whole game talking to me, communicating to me.”

In tough situations is when Brown lets him make a play. He did it time and again Sunday, particularly in the fourth quarter, but earlier possibly his highlight play of the game was a running throw along the sideline dropped into running back D’Andre Swift’s hands on the dead run for a first down to set up Roschon Johnson’s first-quarter touchdown. It was the first time this year the Bear scored first in a game.

“When it gets to two-minute, like today end of the game, before OT, now it's time to go be Superman, do all those different things that I can do,” Williams said. “But throughout the game, play the game the right way, make adjustments, all these different things. Throw hot. Make the right reads. Play within the offense.

“When it's time to be Superman, it's kind of what he tells me. That is what he tells me in the headset, go be Superman at the end of the game.”

Next time Brown might want to say “go be Superman” and win the game.  They might need him to do it as the defense is starting to show it can’t hold up its end of things against tough NFC North offenses.

And if Matt Eberflus' defense can't hold up its end of things, then it won't be long before someone that matters asks, "Why are we even keeping him around here?"

Twitter: BearsOnSI

Published
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.