The Bears managed to beat the Saints on Sunday, despite Caleb Williams having arguably his worst game of the season.
That’s not a viable blueprint going forward.
The biggest concern continues to be Williams’ completion percentage, which has dropped over the last three games. He completed a season-low 57.7% of his passes against the Saints, hitting on 15 of 26 while benefitting from an overwhelming Bears defense and a vigorous rushing attack in a 26-14 victory.
The performance dropped him to 61.1% for the season — in the bottom third among qualifying NFL quarterbacks and well below the 70% goal that coach Ben Johnson set for him going into training camp.
Johnson didn’t offer much insight into the problem Monday, saying mostly that every aspect of the Bears’ 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 in Week 3, bringing himself to 63.4% for the season, but he has been below 60% each of the last three games.
He struggled in this area as a rookie as well, completing 62.5% of his passes to rank 33rd among 39 qualifying quarterbacks and fourth in his draft class.
As much as the Bears would love for his progress to be linear, it’s not always like that for young quarterbacks — especially in their first season under a new coach. But improving his completion percentage is something he should be able to manage, even while adapting to Johnson’s scheme.
Williams vowed to use his struggles as a positive and learn from them, saying, “I am going to figure this out.”
The Bears have a lot riding on whether that happens — and how quickly. If this continues most of the season, it’s hard to imagine them competing against good teams. They visit Baltimore on Sunday, and while the Ravens are 1-5 and have allowed a league-high 32.3 points per game, they also have 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, creating opportunities for significant yardage 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 Sunday but didn’t complete passes on any of them. If a play lasts 10 seconds, somebody should be open.
“There’s a few of those [plays] 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 predecessor Justin Fields being too quick to bolt, Williams sometimes looks too reluctant to take off running. On some of his scrambles, running lanes have been open for him to get some yards, slide and move on to the next play — a contingency option that Johnson acknowledged Williams could use a little more.
That’s a big part of the overhaul he’s working on with Williams: to seize the simple, straightforward opportunities in front of him. Small completions add up. Sometimes they break for explosive plays. For all the innovations and tricks Johnson brings to the playbook, he also knows the value of taking advantage of the obvious.