SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Rookie quarterback Caleb Williams’ bad starts are leading to bad habits.
The Bears’ offense was shut out in the first half for the second time in as many games Sunday, one of the myriad indignities it suffered in a 38-13 demolition at the hands of the 49ers. The Bears totaled four yards in the first half, their fewest since at least 1991, and went to their locker room trailing 24-0.
The rest of the game presented the very situation the Bears wanted to avoid when they paired the No. 1 overall pick with what they thought was a competent roster. Williams had to chase a lead and fattened up his stats with two touchdown passes against a 49ers team that never was threatened.
During their seven-game losing streak, the Bears have scored two touchdowns in the first half. They were the worst first-quarter team in the NFL under former coach Matt Eberflus this season, too. That problem wasn’t solved when they fired him Nov. 29.
‘‘If we had the answer, we would have solved it by now as players, as coaches,’’ Williams said. ‘‘It’s not something that you want to do.’’
Williams went 17-for-23 for 134 yards with two touchdowns and a 116.9 passer rating that belied just how bad the offense looked. He fumbled while trying to stop his throwing motion in the third quarter, his first turnover since he was charged with a fumble when offensive lineman Doug Kramer coughed up the ball at the goal line Oct. 27 in Washington.
Williams was at his worst in obvious passing downs. He was sacked on third down five times and took seven sacks overall, a throwback to his struggles under former coordinator Shane Waldron.
Williams’ development — or lack thereof — will be the most important part of the Bears’ last four games. Everything else is irrelevant by comparison. The Bears need an honest evaluation of Williams, though, and that can’t happen if they get torched early in games.
The 49ers needed five plays and less than three minutes to take a lead they never gave up. They led by at least two scores for all but 13 minutes, 21 seconds.
‘‘We got our ass kicked,’’ Williams said. ‘‘There’s no way around it.’’
The Bears want to get Williams as many reps as possible, but the ones in the second half — as well as those in the second half Nov. 28 against the Lions, when the Bears rallied — aren’t particularly telling. The Bears were chasing points and now risk creating habits in Williams that won’t benefit him as much as running a competent offense throughout a game.
In the last two games, they’ve trailed for all but 9 minutes, 46 seconds, when they were knotted in a scoreless tie.
Against the Lions and 49ers, Williams went a combined 11-for-24 for 61 yards and a 52.8 passer rating in the first half. The Bears trailed at halftime by a combined score of 40-0. Only after that did he go 25-for-44 for 335 yards with five touchdowns and a 119 passer rating.
What success Williams had against the 49ers — he threw two touchdown passes to Rome Odunze that pulled the Bears within 18 points twice — was empty calories.
‘‘I wouldn’t say that it’s hindering anything or anything like that for me personally,’’ Williams said. ‘‘I think they drop back in these coverages, they’re mixing up coverages and things like that. . . .
‘‘Something that we’ve done recently pretty well is [that] we get down and come out of halftime pretty well, scoring points and getting after it.’’
That’s not something worth celebrating.
‘‘It definitely puts the offense in a box, somewhere you never want to be,’’ Odunze said. ‘‘The best feeling for a coordinator is being able to play ahead and being able to pick and choose what he wants to run and take advantage of the defense. So it puts us in a tough position. It’s hard to continue to fight back from that situation.’’
Williams said his communication with interim coach Thomas Brown, who was on the sideline and not in the coaching booth for the first time, went smoothly. The results, however, didn’t show it.
‘‘I don’t know what’s not clicking,’’ said wide receiver DJ Moore, who had six catches for 49 yards. ‘‘But we need to get it going.’’
That falls on Brown and Williams.
‘‘We have to do a better job of trying to find ways to start the games faster, particularly on the offensive side of the ball,’’ Brown said. ‘‘I think we do a decent job at halftime of making adjustments, but get the ball rolling at the beginning of some games to be able to build with the lead.’’
The Bears have to find a way to get there.
‘‘If I had the answer,’’ Brown said, ‘‘I would have already fixed it.’’
The most disturbing part of the result Sunday is what it might portend for the final four games — both for Williams and the Bears.
Moore said he not only was surprised by the loss but by how flat the Bears were to start the game.
‘‘We all had the feeling that everything was good,’’ he said. ‘‘And we come out here and ain’t put up nothing, really.’’