Bear Digest

Nothing Flukey About Caleb Williams Improvement Say Bears

The better production in the passing game displayed by Caleb Williams on a 363-yard, record-setting day was not the result of the Colts playing soft coverage maintain the Beaers.

Gene Chamberlain

Caleb Williams awaits a snap in Sunday's 21-16 Bears loss at Indianapolis to the Colts.
Caleb Williams awaits a snap in Sunday's 21-16 Bears loss at Indianapolis to the Colts. / Christine Tannous USA TODAY Network via Imagn Images
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Caleb Williams' efforts in Sundays 21-16 loss to the Colts failed to generate a win.

What they did do was provide insight into what's possible, according to Bears tight end Cole Kmet.

"You could see him getting in the flow of things better," Kmet said. "Anybody that watches the tape can really see him trying to progress through his reads and trying to see things clearly, and I think he's been picking up his processing speed from game to game, so that's always really encouraging to see.

"When he gets comfortable and gets rolling there, you can see that confidence pick up. He just continued to do that."

Williams is getting the ball out in 2.72 seconds, according to NFL Next Gen Stats. The time is 13th fastest to get it out of his hand in the league.

This didn't seem possible when he had been holding the ball a long time at USC before coming into the league.

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It could go down even more if the progress he is making within the offense continues.

"There's a lot of newness on the offense, and as we continue to feel better about how guys work with one another personnel-wise, we'll continue to grow this," Kmet said. "I do think we're close. I look at it on the film, and theres a couple plays here and there that we’ve got to be better at, but we're getting there and obviously we needed to get there quicker and it hasn’t been good enough, but I don't think it's an all-hope-is-lost situation. There’s a real opportunity there to get this thing going quickly, and once it does, I don’t think we’ll look back. But we’ve got to get there first."

The Bears trailed 21-9 in the fourth quarter and the casual NFL observer not closely watching what went on might have thought Williams' fourth-quarter passing success with two touchdowns might have come as a result of the secondary playing off or softer.

"Yeah, it's not like the game was out of hand," Kmet said. "There was an opportunity to come back there, so it's not like they're really giving up stuff.

"I look at that seam route he threw late in the fourth quarter that he drove the ball on me on — they're preventing those type of throws from happening. That was really an unbelievable throw by him to fit that in between the hook defender, so that was some really good stuff."

The last two drives included three straight third down conversions on the way to the first TD, a third-and-12 conversion and a fourth-and-1 pass for the touchdown to Kmet.

"Obviously the third downs, you look at the one in the fourth quarter, going toward the end zone, two of them, just a man-to-man deal and he trusts me to win at the top of the route," Kmet said. "And the other one played out a little differently than maybe we wanted to and ripping me over the ball on his own look.

"All those things are applicable, and you saw him get in a groove there, and that was really good to see from his end, and you could feel his confidence growing as the game went on despite some of the negative plays that happened."

The negative plays included two interceptions to Jaylon Jones. Coach Matt Eberflus understood how both could happen and saw them more a result of trying to make a play than committing a stupid mistake.

One interception bounced off Rome Odunze in tight double coverage.

“I think it was an aggressive throw," Eberflus said. "I think (Odunze) was open, but those windows close in the NFL. The safe option would have been taking the back in the flat in that particular case.

"They went to the motion and ended up shifting their coverage over there. Again, an aggressive throw, he's got to have some discretion and some wisdom there in terms of when he needs to make that throw. You never want to take away his aggressiveness, but he's got to be really good with the football. That's his No. 1 job as the quarterback."

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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.