Bear Digest

Three Keys to Bears Success for the 2024 Season

Analysis: It's all about Caleb Williams this season, both his production and doing everything possible to give him a chance at success.

Gene Chamberlain

The Bears can't afford to have scenes like this one from preseason, with rookie Caleb Williams being pressured up the middle.
The Bears can't afford to have scenes like this one from preseason, with rookie Caleb Williams being pressured up the middle. / Sam Greene/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK
In this story:


The late, great Bears linebacker Doug Buffone used to tell everyone during his days on WSCR-AM 670 about the three keys to winning each week for the Bears:

  • Run the ball.
  • Stop the run.
  • Rush the man with the skin of the pig.

He'd vary the descriptions of these according to opponent and ultimately they always came down to these three, anyway.

Of course it's a little more complicated than this, but those remain key elements in any win.

Every week during the season, Chicago Bears On SI runs a three keys to a Bears win. Those three Buffone keys always seem to come into play some way, somehow.

It's a week until they kick off to the season and an appropriate time for the three keys to the full Bears season rather than simply a win over the Titans or any other singular foe.

To be sure, these keys follow the Doug Buffone script. They take on other forms while leading back to these, however.

In today's NFL, one other ironclad rule exists that needs to be included. It is defend the pass rather than simply rushing the man with the "skin of the pig."

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Especially with this Bears scheme, it's all about rush and cover. They go hand in hand. It's been this way with the Bears' defensive scheme since Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy both ran this.

Here are the three keys to the 2024 Bears season for a team that many see on the cusp. The tone these take has a definite Caleb Williams sound:

1. Give Caleb Williams a Chance


There is no doubt the rookie passer has the arm to damage from inside or outside the pocket, after his college career and his preseason/training camp performances. He is going to make mistakes like any rookie. The Bears need to make certain he has a chance with better pass blocking against the four-man rush and blitz. They need to run the ball consistently and not avoid it in their play-calling in order to set up play-action passing, which gives any quarterback a big advantage.

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Establishing the run with D'Andre Swift, Khalil Herbert and Roschon Johnson will also take defensive eyes off of Williams initially and thereby remove pressure. If he's going to take them where they want to go this year, Williams needs to be properly supported. Even if Williams makes mistakes when they give him a chance and doesn't win initially, it's vital to the future of the franchise to give him every possible bit of support to grow as a QB.

2. Interior Defensive Improvement

The Bears have Montez Sweat on one side. They will get sufficient pressure from the collection of other edges as they rotate through the pass rushers. Darrell Taylor gives them a player who has proven he can get sacks, although one more one-dimensional. Consider him more like Yannick Ngakoue was last year, but young enough in his career to improve on what he has established. Austin Booker can learn on the fly now with Taylor around to assist Sweat, and they still could get something after Week 4 from injured Jake Martin as a speed edge rusher. DeMarcus Walker is their way of stopping the run on early downs while also getting a push off the edge. Walker had a career-high 22 pressures last season while getting only 3 1/2 sacks. It doesn't take much imagination to see him turning some of those pressures into sacks. Walker lined up last year 638 times over the tackle or outside the tackle and only 74 times in the A-gap or B-gap, but when he came to the Bears he had been touted for having the versatility to excel as an interior rusher. With other edge rushers available, he could go back to doing what he did in Tennessee or Denver, and that's rush from the interior. He had twice as many snaps on the interior in 2021 and 2022 on the interior than he did for the Bears last year and in 2020 almost had a 50-50 inside/outside split.

But the real defensive interior improvement must come from starting second-year 3-technique Gervon Dexter, who struggled against the run and at getting pads low enough. If he can't be a better run defender, neither he nor the other Bears linemen will get the chance to pressure the passer.

If they're able to accomplish these aims on defense, it keeps them in games and doesn't ask Williams to do the impossible each week.

3. Properly Assess Williams' Capabilities

This might be the key to everything. Each week in their game plan, they need to realize what their QB is capable of as a rookie and with the situation he faces against a given opponent and with the healthy players he has available. Getting Williams out ahead of his skis is a sure way to not only create turnovers but also put their QB's health in jeopardy. Witness, for example, Matt Nagy's disastrous game plan against the Cleveland Browns in Justin Fields' first start in 2021. He had a QB with a half of experience lining up on the road against one of the league's best pass rushes and repeatedly went to naked backfields or sent the backs out without providing someone to pick up blitzes or help on dominant Myles Garrett. It was a total nightmare. Shane Waldron can't produce game plans putting Williams in a role where he must do things he isn't capable of yet as a rookie passer. If he does, it destroys not only their chances of winning this year but of developing another QB.

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.