Midway through his rookie season, Bears quarterback Caleb Williams started writing offensive tenets he wanted to study even more in-depth this offseason. The list, which is up to about eight items now, includes notes about pre-snap motion, footwork and how fast Williams can fire the ball to a receiver on certain routes before the defense rotates.
“I have a good amount of stuff that I’m planning on going over,” he said.
One of them better be late-game situations. The last time Williams saw the Lions — Sunday’s opponent at Soldier Field — he was changing a short pass to a deep shot as the clock ticked down on Thanksgiving. Then-head coach Matt Eberflus had a timeout at his disposal that he refused to use.
Williams was sacked with 32 seconds left and the ball at the Lions’ 41 in a three-point game. With the clock running, he called a play at the line of scrimmage. With 13 seconds left, he realized the Bears were running out of time and changed receiver Rome Odunze’s route to a deep ball. His bumbling head coach refused to call a timeout, so Williams had to decide the heave to Odunze would be the Bears’ last play of the game.
The incompletion after the clock expired is the lasting image of Williams’ rookie season. It encapsulates everything that’s been so frustrating this year: unaware coaching, a porous offensive line, a rookie quarterback trying to do too much and a different NFC North team emerging victorious.
Williams can’t change the narrative of a lost season, but he could at least provide a hopeful moment by finding a way to beat either the Lions, the Seahawks on “Thursday Night Football” or the rival Packers. Given how bad the Bears have become and the fact all three teams are in the NFC playoff hunt, it seems unlikely.
To pull an upset, Williams has to do better at the end of games — and be much-improved in the first half. The Bears have been shut out in the first half in each of the last three games, the first time that’s happened since 1933. Do it again, and they’d become just the eighth NFL team since the AFL-NFL merger with a streak of four such games.
That kind of offensive ineptitude is how a team loses eight games in a row. Only the Panthers have fewer yards than the Bears this season, and only seven teams have scored fewer points.
On Thanksgiving, the Bears couldn’t shake the Lions’ man defense in the first half but gained separation more often in the second. They trailed 16-0 at halftime and lost 23-20.
“Just throwing accurate passes, pass protecting, running the ball well, winning on man routes,” Williams said. “That’s what started to click.”
It didn’t last. The Bears were blanked in the first half the next week against the 49ers and lost by 25. Then they lost by 18 Monday night in Minneapolis after being down 13-0 at halftime.
“Going out there and being violent and executing the details that are given to us — that will create more positivity in the first half,” Williams said. “Meaning more first downs, more explosives, more touchdowns, more points on the board.”
It would be impossible to post fewer points in the first half. And it would be hard for the Bears to execute worse with the game on the line.
Williams has three games to give the Bears any reason to think otherwise.
“Losing is one of those things that really affects me:” Williams said. “It’s tough. But I do have the understanding of where I’m at in my career, and where I’ll be.”