The Bears managed to beat the Saints on Sunday despite quarterback Caleb Williams playing arguably his worst game of the season, but that is not a viable blueprint going forward.
The biggest concern continues to be his completion percentage, which has actually dropped over the last three games. He completed a season-low 57.7% of his passes against the Saints, hitting on 15 of 26, but benefitted from an overwhelming Bears defense and vigorous rushing attack to win 26-14.
That dropped him to 61.1% for the season, which sits in the NFL’s bottom third and well below the 70% goal coach Ben Johnson set going into training camp.
Johnson didn’t offer much insight into the problem Monday, saying mostly that every aspect of the passing attack needs to get sharper: routes, blocking, play-calling and Williams’ throws.
Williams showed signs of moving forward when he completed 19 of 28 passes in a runaway win over the Cowboys and brought himself to 63.4% for the season, but has been below 60% each of the last three games.
Williams struggled in that area as a rookie, too. He completed 62.5% of his passes last season, ranking 33rd among 39 qualifying quarterbacks and fourth in his draft class.
As much as the Bears would love his progress to be linear, it’s not always like that for young quarterbacks — especially in their first season under a new coach. But he must be steadier than this, and improving his completion percentage is something he should be able to manage even while adapting to Johnson’s scheme.
Williams vowed to make good use of his struggles and learn from them, saying, “I am going to figure this out.”
Perhaps he will, but the Bears have a lot riding on how quickly that happens.
If this continues most of the season, it’s hard to imagine them competing against good teams. They visit the Ravens on Sunday, and while they’re 1-5 and have allowed a league-high 32.3 points per game, they’ve been a championship contender the last few seasons and shouldn’t be written off.
Williams can complete more passes by taking the easy ones on broken plays, and those opportunities can often turn into significant gains on yards after the catch because the defense is spread all over the field.
Instead, he often seems to be buying time to look far downfield. He had four long scrambles in the backfield against the Saints and didn’t complete passes on any of them. If a play lasts 10 seconds, somebody should be open.
“There’s a few of those that we [would like to] maybe make a little bit different decision than what we did in the moment,” Johnson said. “That’s part of what makes him special, so you don’t want to neuter him. That’s a dangerous road to go down because he’s got this natural ability to feel the pocket and know when to escape and extend.
“More than anything, it’s just making sure we’re on the same page of the time and place and the situation for where that Superman cape comes out.”
Ironically, after three seasons of Justin Fields being too quick to bolt, Williams sometimes looks too reluctant to take off running. On some of those scrambles, running lanes were open for him to get some yards, slide and move on to the next play.
That should always be a contingency plan rather than the primary option, but Johnson acknowledged Williams could do it a little more.
That’s a big part of the overhaul he’s working on with Williams: taking advantage of the simple, straightforward opportunities in front of him.
Sometimes the easy choice is most prudent. Small completions add up and sometimes they break for explosive plays. For all innovations and tricks Johnson brings to the playbook, he knows the value of taking advantage of the obvious. He needs Williams to see that, too.
