Bear Digest

What the Bears Have to Worry About with Caleb Williams

There are numerous concerns being voiced about Caleb Williams as the first pick for the Bears but do any of them have merit?

Gene Chamberlain

Caleb Williams holding the ball a long time is just one of many issues being discussed regarding his playing ability.
Caleb Williams holding the ball a long time is just one of many issues being discussed regarding his playing ability. / Troy Wayrynen-USA TODAY Sports
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One of the great myths about Caleb Williams is that he fumbles too much.

In fact, there have been massive amounts of disinformation about this on the internet saying he has fumbled 30-odd times. The official number of fumbles according to the NCAA is 17 in three years: eight last year, three in 2022 and six in 2021.

The thinking is the Bears would go from a fumbler in Justin Fields to another fumbler. Fields, after all, fumbled 38 times in three seasons. No one in the NFL fumbled it as much as he did over the past three years.

In fact, this is a concern brought up by many and most recently by ESPN's Matt Miller in a comment to talkSPORT.

"He had eight fumbles last year," Miller said. "That's going to have to get fixed."

Or does it?

The Trojans last year experienced far more breakdowns in pass protection than in the previous season.

When they had decent pass blocking for Williams in 2022, he fumbled just three times and won the Heisman.

The previous year as Oklahoma's starter, he had six fumbles and the Sooners lost only one of those. The fumble itself is important because that alone can kill a drive if it comes on a sack even if it's recovered by the fumbling team.

To be sure, Williams holds the ball sometimes in places he shouldn't. But 17 times in three seasons is not a chronic problem after you've had someone fumble more than twice as many over three seasons.

Williams' ability to throw unimpeded was greatly diminished last year as his sacks rate climbed from 2.14% to 2.54% He operated as the main QB ahead of Spencer Rattler at Oklahoma in 2021, where they had a 2.54% sack rate.

Here's a list of the top fumblers in NFL history:

Brett Favre 166, Warren Moon 161, Dave Krieg 153, Kerry Collins 139, John Elway 137, Tom Brady 134, Eli Manning 125, Drew Bledsoe 123, Boomer Esiason 123, Vinny Testaverde 117, Ben Roethlisberger 115, Drew Brees 111, Philip Rivers 111, Jon Kitna 110, Dan Marino 110.

The list has a fairly good number of Hall of Fame players. It's going to happen with QBs. Maybe it doesn't happen as much for most QBs as it did for Fields, but it happens.

There are only a couple who would have been remembered as chronic fumblers on the list.

Dave Krieg was often criticized for this but he also is remembered for this because so many people pointed out how small his hands were. Williams' hands, though not big, are bigger than the average NFL passer at 9 3/4 inches. His hands are bigger than 60% of QBs who've had them measured at combines, according to Mockdraftable.com.

Of more importance is Williams' interception rate. At 1.3%, with 14 picks for 1,099 passes, he's not worrying anyone with his decisions and placement of the football. This is especially true considering the amount of pressure he was under last year.

There are far bigger concerns.

5. Height

It's not easy to be short and play quarterback in the NFL. Williams' 6-foot-1 1/8 height by official combine measurement is not short compared to the average male. However, it puts him in the bottom 20% of quarterbacks measured at all combines according to Mockdraftable.com. His size must be considered in other ways. At 214 pounds, can he stand up to the rush from 320-pound defensive linemen. The 214 is bottom 25% of weight for all NFL QBs.

Taking into account all of Williams' measurements, the quarterbacks Mockdraftable.com says he most closely resembles are former Bears Chase Daniel and Chris Leak, as well as Shaun King, Tim Hasselbeck, Mike Cook, Adam Tafralis and Tylker Palko. This isn't taking into account his productivity, just his height, weight, arm length, wing span and hand size.

He's a 99% duplicate for those QBs by those standards.

He's a 98.9% duplicate of one other Bears QB using those standards.

Cade McNown.

4. Different Offense

How is Williams going to adjust to playing in a different offense? He spent his entire college career playing for Lincoln Riley in the Air Raid offense the past three years, two at USC and the other in 2021 at Oklahoma. Shane Waldron is sure to adapt his scheme to include some of the qualities of that scheme to benefit Williams' game, but it's not going to be the same as playing in the same scheme three straight seasons.

One part of this is going under center more. He virtually never did it in college and will now.

It's too bad for him that he'll need to change it up but almost no NFL quarterbacks have that kind of advantage. Some national "analysts" suggested he should try to engineer a Bears trade with Washington because new Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury was an offensive assistant with USC for one season while Williams was there and uses a similar attack.

Too bad. Join the rest of the NFL QBs and adjust to how it's done elsewhere. It's part of growing up.

3. Surrounding Cast

The big problem might not be Williams himself but giving him a chance. It's why so many QBs drafted first overall have been on teams with terrible records as rookies. They're not going to the best-equipped teams but those with terrible records the previous season.

The Bears were 7-10 and have brought in two experienced receivers to join DJ Moore as Williams' targets. The question now is will they have the offensive line in order for him and can they get the third wide receiver. The line starters already appear in place, unless they were to draft a top tackle at No. 9.

2. Game Speed

The NFL moves faster, the players are faster, bigger and stronger. Williams chose to hold the ball for long periods of time on extended plays, then found receivers for key gains. There are numerous critics who say his habit of doing this won't translate to the NFL game.

Pro Football Focus said Williams took 3.44 seconds to throw in 2022 and 3.21 in 2023. Fields was often criticized for this issue and his average time to throw last year was 3.23 second, according to NFL Next Gen Stats.  https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/stats/passing#average-time-to-throw

The question is does Williams alter his game to account for this speed change, or can he?

One way he can make up for it is with his rapid release on passes, the amount of time he takes to get rid of the football

1. The Processor

Because things happen faster with faster players, Williams is going to need to process what he's seeing from defenses faster and know where to go with the ball. It's a mental thing more than physical.

This is the key issue for all NFL rookie quarterbacks and actually draws from many other aspects like the speed of the game, the knowledge of their offense and also his own targets.

If you're not processing the situation on every play fast enough, arm and other physical attributes are only going to get a quarterback so far.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven

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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.

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