That was bad. Just awful.
The Bears’ offense was a mess Sunday at Soldier Field, and that would’ve been frustrating on the first day or two of training camp, but it was maddening in their 10th practice.
Quarterback Caleb Williams was off from the start and had two delay-of-game penalties on one drive early and a near-interception that was saved only by wide receiver Tyler Scott knocking it away from the defender. There was another delay-of-game later in practice and on a first-and-goal play toward the end of the two-hour session, Williams broke the huddle with seven seconds on the play clock and had to burn a timeout.
Imagine that kind of disarray in a real game. Ben Johnson can.
“It was sloppy — sloppier than we were hoping we would be at this point,” he said, unprompted.
The only good thing about Sunday was that Johnson called it out rather than follow in the ill-fated footsteps of predecessors Matt Eberflus and Matt Nagy by trying to convince everyone that it wasn’t as bad as it looked.
Finally, some straight talk. Every indication was that Williams didn’t get enough of it last season — so much so that even he spoke up in January about needing a coach who would confront him when he erred. He’s getting plenty of that now.
Johnson had good reason to be upset about the pre-snap issues because he’s been harping on them since the start of Organized Team Activities in May and believed Williams and the first-string offense had turned a corner on that. He prioritizes getting play calls in quickly and getting to the line of scrimmage in a hurry, but saw too many snags in that process Sunday.
“It’s something we’re going to have to address for sure,” Johnson said. “If it continues like that, we’re not going to win many games.”
No one outside Halas Hall needs to sound the alarm. The head coach is doing it himself. He wasn’t all doom-and-gloom, pointing out the offense tightened things up near the end of practice, but there was no misunderstanding the sternness and seriousness in his tone.
Johnson, an offensive wizard who turned the Lions into a juggernaut as their coordinator before the Bears hired him, has acknowledged he’s putting a lot on the plate for Williams and the rest of the offense and is willing to tolerate some mistakes as long as they don’t become habits.
But he saw repeat errors Sunday, and “the installs are slowing down, so we do expect the execution to be a little bit cleaner.”
Like most coaches, Johnson hammers the importance of details, and this practice was painful to watch in that regard.
On one of the offense’s bigger gains in the first half of practice, a 10-yard completion over the middle from Williams to Rome Odunze, Williams’ pass was well behind Odunze, who reached back to save it for the catch.
On a third down at the opponent’s 5-yard line, he threw late over the middle and linebacker Tremaine Edmunds almost got him, but couldn’t quite hang on to the ball for the interception. Williams took a sack by Dayo Odeyingbo on fourth down to end the series.
On a drill in which the offense had to dig out of first-and-10 from its own 1-yard line, running back D’Andre Swift couldn’t get out of the end zone, and defensive tackle Gervon Dexter took him down for a safety. Johnson immediately pulled Williams aside after that play and seemed to indicate there was something he missed.
“Execution of the play wasn’t what we wanted it to be,” Johnson said. “The defense… came out and kicked the offense’s rear in that. They wanted it a little bit more.”
For all the optimism the Bears have about pairing Williams with Johnson, there’s been little concrete evidence to support it in the first 10 practices. Williams has had some rough days, some OK days and a couple good days. He appeared to be on the upswing Thursday and Saturday before struggling Sunday.
It’s a reminder of how little he has proven. The prestige of the Heisman Trophy, the tremendous numbers he put up at USC and the stature of being the No. 1 overall pick last year are just hype until he plays like that in the NFL.
His rookie season was good by Bears standards, but well below expectations and behind some of his peers. He took aim at topping Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud’s jaw-dropping rookie season of 2023, then finished fourth in his own rookie class in passer rating.
When Johnson arrived, he indicated that virtually none of what Williams was taught under Eberflus and offensive coordinator Shane Waldron would translate to how he was being coached by this staff. He is essentially treating him like a rookie, and the first couple weeks of training camp suggest that’s the correct approach.
None of this is the final word on Williams. He’s 23. He’s got more than a month until the season opener and he’ll likely get all of this and next season to make his case to the Bears that he can be a star.
But he and the Bears need to be honest about where he’s at, and Johnson seems to see with crystal clear vision that there’s still a lot of work to do. Williams might get there eventually, but he’s not right now.