Bears quarterback Caleb Williams has talked for two years about the mental fatigue of facing Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores, who will blitz him from any position, at any angle.
While Williams has faced Flores four times, Friday’s fatigue will come, for the first time, in a different way — Vic Fangio trying to obscure which coverage he’s running. Fangio has been so adept at blurring coverages that he’s been considered the sport’s expert long before he won his first Super Bowl last year as the Eagles’ defensive coordinator.
“They do well hiding coverages and hiding pressures and waiting until the ball is snapped to do a bunch of different rotations and things like that,” Williams said Tuesday after the Bears’ walk-through. “They’re different — but unique in their own ways.”
Williams’ latest test in a season full of them comes as a particularly important time for the second-year quarterback, given the frustrations with his accuracy Sunday against the Steelers. Williams was wild at times in the 31-28 win, leaving in-breaking passes too high to Luther Burden and Rome Odunze and low and behind DJ Moore. He was lucky the Steelers dropped sure-fire interceptions.
Watching film of Sunday’s performance showed Williams that his dropback steps were exactly where they should have been. His stance grew a bit wide before he threw and forced the ball too high, though, leading Williams to think he needs to warm his legs up more early in games.
“Circling back to the small details that go into it,” he said.
He’ll need to be on them Friday in Philadelphia. The Eagles have Pro Football Focus’ 10th-ranked defense, a disappointment after they were ranked first last year and famously flummoxed the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes to win the Super Bowl. They struggled Sunday against big plays, allowing the Cowboys to convert three passes for 43 yards or more in a 24-21 come-from-behind win.
A bad throw against Fangio’s zone, particularly if Williams isn’t quite sure of the coverage, will still spell trouble. Williams will have to be accurate enough to sustain drives, too. Only five teams have run more plays of 20-plus yards than the Bears this season, and Fangio’s scheme is designed to prevent just that. The Eagles have played zone defense 70% of the time this season.
“They do a really good job of keeping a shell over you,” Bears offensive coordinator Declan Doyle said. “They force you to try to run the ball. Their whole goal is to eliminate explosives. Our goal offensively when we go in is really to be explosive.
“They’ve kinda modeled their defense to be the antithesis of what we’re trying to get done.”
That’s the ultimate compliment for a man who was among the most well-respected coordinators to ever patrol Halas Hall. Bears coach John Fox recruited Fangio to join him as defensive coordinator in 2015. He stayed when Fox was fired and Matt Nagy took over three years later. Fangio’s league-best 2018 defense drove the Bears to their last NFC North title, and his departure to become the Broncos’ head coach short-circuited the franchise’s last true success — until, perhaps, this year.
From afar, Fangio has admired what coach Ben Johnson and Williams have built, starting with the head coach teaching Williams how to play under center for the first time in his career. The quarterback mostly played out of the shotgun at Oklahoma and USC, and under Matt Eberflus last year.
“Kudos to him and his staff for bringing that young quarterback along, who I don’t think ever played under center in college,” Fangio told Eagles reporters Tuesday. “He’s doing a great job. They’ve fought through many of the pitfalls of that, and now they got a quarterback that’s executing their offense the way they want.”
That offense is predicated off play-action passes — Steelers coach Mike Tomlin singled out Williams’ efficiency out of it — and, often, Williams improvising on the run. Fangio called Williams and Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart the two best scramblers in the NFL.
“It’s an added dimension to their offense … ” he said. “Now, with him, there’s going to be plays where you have to defend a second play, where he’s creating with his scrambling. He’s a high-level scrambler and he’s strong, he’s fast, he’s got good instincts when he’s scrambling. It’s tough.”
Williams can say the same thing about Fangio. Friday, he’ll get to experience it for the first time.
“He has a great D-line, so that limits the run game,” Williams said. “You’ve got to get more double teams on the D-line, which means it allows their [line]backers to be a little bit more free. And then they’ve got explosive players in the secondary that can go up and get the ball or bat it down.”
The mental fatigue will come long before Williams throws the ball.
“Really, it’s still about us, still about his process,” Doyle said. “Being able to see the defense and make sure that his post-snap picture is either the same as what he saw pre-snap. Or very quickly, transition into, ‘Hey, I need to move on,’ or move my eyes and my feet somewhere else.’”
