The version of Caleb Williams that appears for the Bears when the game is on the line is absolutely what they or any other team is looking for in a franchise quarterback.
He’s calm, clutch and virtually unstoppable. He makes throws others can’t. He darts and dodges. There’s something about him that makes everyone around him believe victory is in sight no matter how dire the situation gets.
If Williams could play like that all the time, there’d be no question about what the Bears have in him and where their future together is headed. It’s the rest of the game, which also matters, that creates so much uncertainty.
Why is he Superman at the end, but nondescript Clark Kent the rest of the game? The Bears need to get him in that phone booth before the opening kickoff instead of waiting until they’re on the brink of defeat.
“That’s something we want to get down,” Williams said after practice Wednesday. “It’s everybody understanding what we can be on offense. We can score fast and we can score on 13-play drives. We’ve got special talent on our side of the ball on offense.
“Toward the end of the game, it’s time to win the game and you get in that mode. Defenses have shown you throughout the game how they game-planned for you. You get into a rhythm and a flow toward the end of the game, and the mindset changes in the sense that, we have no other option at that point other than to score and fight.”
Williams has been the best late-game quarterback in the NFL this season. That’s not hyperbole. The numbers show it in every regard.
He has a league-best 143.8 passer rating in the final five minutes, and that’s typically been crunch time for the Bears. Of their nine games, two were out of hand late in one direction or the other, but mostly the pressure has been on. There’s not much filler in his statistics.
His completion percentage, at 65.2, is up five points from the rest of the game, his yards per pass spikes from 6.9 to 11.5, he hasn’t thrown an interception and he has taken just one sack.
“He’s been pretty consistent throughout, staying locked in and dialed in… but [late in games], you’re in more drop-back pass mode, and I don’t want to say he’s got a higher comfort level there, but that is probably where he’s had the majority of his snaps over high school, college and the NFL,” coach Ben Johnson said. “So there probably is just a little bit of, ‘OK, this is my wheelhouse, and I know we’re going to throw it, and defense knows we’re going to throw it, and yet I can go ahead and make a play.’ There might be something to that.”