The worry about Bears quarterback Caleb Williams is at its peak.
There’s a menu of concerns, which, 24 starts into his career, is a problem in itself. His discouraging performance in the Bears’ 30-16 loss Sunday to the Ravens featured a continuation of the issues that have hindered him, and he doesn’t have enough of a track record to write this off as a slump.
Williams completed 25 of 38 passes for 285 yards with no touchdowns and an interception for a 77.2 passer rating. Those numbers got a slight bump at the end, when the Ravens had a two-touchdown lead.
Head coach Ben Johnson had some objections to how Williams played, but he also highlighted some of the positives and said Monday that Williams ‘‘took a step forward’’ in the game.
It requires a lot of faith in Johnson, a first-year head coach, to believe that right now.
In his last four games, Williams has completed 60.8% of his passes, averaged 230.3 passing yards and thrown two touchdown passes and three interceptions for a 77.8 passer rating. He faced defenses that rank 20th or worse in opponent passer rating and 21st or worse in points allowed.
For the season, he ranks 24th among 33 qualifying quarterbacks in completion percentage (61.9), 13th in passing yards per game (233.7), 19th in touchdown passes (nine), 19th in interceptions by percentage of his passes (1.8) and 20th in passer rating (90.2).
That’s not a disaster, but it’s not great, and the Bears surely expected better when they paired the No. 1 overall pick in 2024 with the No. 1 head-coaching candidate. Fellow 2024 first-rounders Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye and Bo Nix are ahead of Williams in passer rating.
The most troubling part of Williams’ struggles is that he’s making mistakes that have nothing to do with adjusting to a new play-caller.
Regardless of how poorly he was coached as a rookie by Matt Eberflus, Williams is messing up things any second-year quarterback should be past: holding the ball for too long, a slow and imprecise pre-snap process, committing intentional grounding and taking sacks at the worst times (five on third downs) and misjudging defensive backs’ speed.
He had mental lapses at the end of both halves against the Ravens.
As the Bears looked for a late score going into halftime, 23 seconds clicked off the clock between plays, then Williams was flagged for intentional grounding and forced the Bears to burn their last timeout to avoid a 10-second runoff. Ultimately, they tried a rushed 58-yard field goal that was short.
Near the end, the game was virtually over, but the Bears still were clawing desperately for a chance. Johnson called a quarterback sneak on third-and-goal from the Ravens’ 1, which he admitted was a bad idea, and another 30 seconds ticked away before a failed fourth-down play.
Johnson has talked a lot about urgency in getting to the line of scrimmage, consistency in cadence and avoiding false starts since the first time he got the Bears on the field in the spring, but the offense still isn’t up to his standard.
‘‘Well, the good news in this is we’re not getting flagged for delay-of-game penalties,’’ he said.
That’s the lowest bar in the sport to clear.
‘‘Our guys are doing a good job getting the communication out and getting it going,’’ Johnson said. ‘‘Is it as fast as we would like? No, it’s not.
‘‘The more ball we play, the more we hear the same stuff, the more we do the same things, the faster our tempo’s going to be in and out of the huddle and on the line of scrimmage.’’
With the Bears trailing 16-13, Williams also sunk their chance to overtake the Ravens with nine minutes left. It wasn’t just that he threw an interception, but it was how he threw it and what he thought about it.
From his own 4-yard line, he fired over the middle to wide receiver Rome Odunze, but Ravens cornerback Nate Wiggins darted in front to pick it off. Williams said he should have made a better throw, but Johnson called it ill-advised and repeated Monday that he should have checked it down. Running back Kyle Monangai was open in the flat.
Williams and Johnson were pointing out the same problem, but Williams didn’t seem to realize it. He thought he should have thrown a better pass, but Johnson essentially was saying that the throw was impossible when windows close as quickly as they do in the NFL.
Next is his inaccuracy as a passer. At this point, it’s hard for Williams or anyone else to continue being surprised by that. Maybe that wasn’t an issue at USC, but it has been the book on him in the NFL.
Pro Football Reference charted him 31st in on-target throws at 56.2% of his passes, and NFL Next Gen Stats have him a league-worst 7.1 points below his expected completion percentage.
Lastly, Williams hasn’t yet clicked with Johnson. An acclimation period was expected, but the Bears are nearing the time when it should start looking right. At a minimum, there should be obvious signs it’s headed the right way.
The Bears remain in decent shape at 4-3 and will be favored in their next two games, but the schedule takes a brutal turn after that. They probably will be underdogs in six or seven of their final eight games, and the only way to flip that is to get Williams firing.
That, however, still looks like a sizable project.
