Bear Digest

Vikings' Pressure Tests Resiliency of Bears and Caleb Williams

Analysis: Bouncing back from another catastrophe is the goal for the Bears overall but for Caleb Williams handling the pressure takes on a more literal meaning.

Gene Chamberlain

Caleb Williams had more time to survey the field against Green Bay, but Minnesota's defense will be out to prevent this.
Caleb Williams had more time to survey the field against Green Bay, but Minnesota's defense will be out to prevent this. / Mark Hoffman / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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The last time the Bears had a catastrophe hit like it did Sunday with Green Bay's game-ending blocked field goal, they handled it poorly.

Toss in several other factors involved in this Sunday's game against the Minnesota Vikings and there's every reason for coach Matt Eberflus to be concerned about the mental state of his team. If they're not ready, they could have happen what occurred after the Hail Mary defeat against Washington—consecutive blowout losses to Arizona and New England.

"Yeah, you know, when you're on the adversity that we're on right now, you have to be mindful of that as a head coach and where the temperature of the team is, where everybody’s mindset is," Eberflus said. "All you can do is look at work patterns and the guys have done a really great job of coming in on Monday, understanding where we are, working in the Tuesday, Wednesday, and the guys did an awesome job in terms of that and I just give all the credit to those guys because they’re a resilient bunch and they come out fighting and swinging every single time. So this week too. Really good week of practice and we'll see where it goes from here."

If it was only a matter of being mentally and physically ready to play a game, it's not a huge ask. However, facing the complicated blitzing and the explosive attack the Minnesota Vikings bring to Chicago can make your average game become a blowout whether you're "up" for the game or not.

Quarterback Caleb Williams will see blitzes and disguises from Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores like he hasn't seen to date.

"I think he's good for where he is in his career," Eberflus said. "He's got a handful of games under his belt now. He's looked at a couple of various defenses, including ours during training camp, and he's growing every week.

"And this defense does give you some looks and different things, and I think the manageable and effectiveness of that, the things we have built in, the alerts that we have on those particular calls, I think are good. Again, it's about communication and execution now."

The Bears had a real horizontal look to how they attacked the Vikings last year in Minneapolis in a 12-10 win with Justin Fields at quarterback. That was how Luke Getsy wanted to approach it.

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"Yeah, I think you have to have other ways to attack, I really do," Eberflus said. "You got to attack the whole part of the field. The vertical side of it, the inside vertical side of it, and the outside edges and the short part.

"And I think that's your creativity and your answers have to go into all those spaces and I think that's when it's harder to defend, you know, in terms of on defense and we have to have all those answers."

The guessing game won't belong entirely to the Bears in this regard.

The Vikings have only one game film to study with Thomas Brown as Bears offensive coordinator.

"Like I said on Wednesday, too, I said that you only can defend what you see and so I think you can play off those looks and do a good job being creative and putting our guys in position to create their own plays in space," Eberflus said. "I think that’s an important part of any game plan."

They're going to need to make the plan as clear to a rookie in order to beat the extra pass rushers.

"As an offensive play caller, it's my job to alleviate stress from the two most stressful positions, which is the O-line and the quarterback," Brown said. "If we can do that through the use of shift and motions, if we can do it through the run game and do it through the use of screens.

"But, also, how many ways can we design unsackable plays? We always have an all-out mentality. When a guy's playing in space, we want him to be decisive and make a play."

All the preparation in the world won't matter if Williams panics in standing up to the blitz. So far this season, Stathead/Pro Football Reference tracks him at being blitzed 24.3% of his pass attempts, the 10th most for any QB. Sometimes he handles it by scrambling, and has 29 total scrambles at 8.6 yards a try. He has completed just over 59% of passes against the blitz according to Pro Football Focus, which is only about 2% below his 61.8% completions overall on the year. j

The proof of how well Williams handles it will be apparent in the numbers on Sunday. He hasn't thrown an interception in 146 straight passes.

The goal is simple for Williams as he tries to end a losing streak but it's a good test of where he is in development.

"Just being able to take the game plan that's in place and execute that at a high level and then also have the adaptability and understanding that you have to move the game plan during the course of the game and be able to make those adjustments, and I think this is a great game for that," Eberflus said. "And again, that's going to be up to the whole rest of the year, but when you do that as a quarterback, as an offense or a defense, that's when you're really humming and I think that’s a big part of having success."

If they finish Sunday and can say they are humming at anything on offense, there's a chance they'll end another losing streak.

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.