Caleb Williams’ first two NFL touchdown passes weren’t enough to get the Chicago Bears past the Indianapolis Colts in a mistake-filled 21-16 loss, and now the Los Angeles Rams come to Soldier Field with the Bears looking to avoid a 1-3 start.
Williams’ best game to date didn’t stop some from wondering, in light of Jayden Daniels’ record performance Monday, whether the Bears made another mistake on draft day. The Tribune’s Brad Biggs begins his weekly Bears mailbag there.
Don’t tell me the Bears picked the wrong quarterback again. — @tonymolini1
I won’t say that and it’s far too premature to jump down this rabbit hole. But I will tell you a defensive coordinator for another team texted me Tuesday morning asking the same question.
Jayden Daniels was fantastic Monday night in leading the Washington Commanders to a 38-33 upset in Cincinnati. The No. 2 draft pick completed 21 of 23 passes — a rookie-record 91.3% — for 254 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 39 yards and another score. He’s completing 80.3% for the season and ranks fourth in the NFL in passer rating (111.8) and yards per attempt (8.7).
Now, slow down a bit.
“Oh boy,” a veteran pro scout texted. “Let’s not go there yet.”
It’s definitely too soon to make any judgments on Caleb Williams versus Daniels. I’d point out the Bengals defense has really been struggling. That being said, Washington doesn’t have an ideal situation on its offensive line — a problem you’re familiar with if you watch a certain other rookie quarterback perform. Daniels has been sacked nine times, tied for ninth-most in the league, and his collection of skill-position talent isn’t nearly as good as what Williams has to work with.
One notable difference is the Commanders have been able to run the ball, averaging 153.7 yards per game, fifth in the league. Daniels has been a big part of that with 171 of the team’s 461 rushing yards (37%). The Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson is the only quarterback with more rushing yards.
Williams is coming off a pretty good game and clear improvement in the Bears’ 21-16 loss to the Indianapolis Colts at Lucas Oil Stadium. He set a franchise rookie record with 363 passing yards, completing 33 of 52 passes with two touchdowns and two interceptions.
If Williams was really struggling, it would be a little easier to dive into this question. He’s not. There’s a lot of football left to play this season, and I think the Bears are pleased with the progress he has displayed, especially when considering the issues on the offensive line and consistent lack of a complementary running game.
Tracking Caleb Williams: How the Chicago Bears QB is performing in his rookie season
What’s most impressive about the Commanders offense is how it’s staying on the field. Their last 17 possessions ended with a score or kneel-down, and they didn’t punt Monday night or in the Week 2 win over the New York Giants. They did kick seven field goals against the Giants and have had a rough go of it in the red zone, but you have to go back to Week 1 for their last punt. Washington (2-1) has not turned the ball over through three games.
Daniels was the No. 1 quarterback on the draft board of at least two teams I know of, but there are questions. Can he hold up when he takes hits in the NFL? That was a real question coming off his Heisman Trophy-winning season at LSU last year, when he put himself in harm’s way more than he should have. Daniels has a slight frame, listed at 6-foot-4, 210 pounds. That was a concern for teams entering the draft. As the Commanders put more stuff on tape, defenses will have a chance to see what’s working — what Daniels is comfortable with — and try to take that away.
He’s super talented, no question about it. But if Williams continues to advance, the Bears will remain pleased with their selection. Their focus is on Williams, and I haven’t seen anything to this point that would give me concern — beyond standard questions you have for all rookie quarterbacks — about his ability to develop and eventually thrive. Again, he’s coming off a pretty good performance, all things considered.
It’s a legitimate question down the road and one that others are at least wondering about. Look forward to Week 8, when Williams and Daniels will go head to head at Washington.
Will they fire Matt Eberflus if they lose to the Rams and Panthers? — @anilliniguy
This escalated quickly. If you’re a regular reader, you know I’ve pointed out many times in the last decade that the Bears never have replaced a head coach during the season.
That being said, there are some obviously frustrating elements to the team’s 1-2 start, from game management issues (wasting a timeout before a 2-point conversion and poor decisions to challenge calls) to play selection on offense and poor performance by an offensive line that seemingly has regressed.
The Bears opened as 2½-point favorites over the Los Angeles Rams, and it would be a stunner if they aren’t favored in Week 5 at home game against the Carolina Panthers. You’re asking me to really peer into the crystal ball if the Bears somehow lose the next two games.
A loss to the Rams would be really difficult because it would drop the Bears to 1-3, and no NFC teams are winless through three weeks. It’s impractical to call a game in September a must-win for a coach or an organization, but it sure feels like a significant one for Eberflus and his offensive staff as the Rams have been porous on defense. They’re 30th in run defense, allowing 177 rushing yards per game. Of course, we know how that worked out last week against a putrid Colts run defense.
I know this much: If the Bears drop the next two games, noise surrounding the franchise will be amplified and things will get tense at Halas Hall. Changing the head coach coming off a Week 5 game — a day before a flight to London for a game against the Jacksonville Jaguars — would not make a lot of sense, especially with a bye after that game.
Odds are greater the team might make a move with coordinator Shane Waldron if the offense remains a mess the next couple of weeks. Developing Caleb Williams is Waldron’s No. 1 job and the Bears can feel like that’s headed in the right direction, but there has to be some tangible improvement in the running game to give Williams a better chance.
This, of course, would be another pretty extreme measure. Am I saying Waldron is on the hot seat entering Week 4? No. But the Bears have to get some things straightened out and quickly.
Shane Waldron’s offense never seemed this discombobulated in Seattle. So what’s happened to him and Chicago’s offense? — @mmesq11
That’s a good question, and the Bears surely would pay top dollar for a great answer. I never thought the Seahawks had a cutting-edge offense with Waldron. They weren’t very good running the football last season with a couple of pretty good backs in Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet, and some folks I’ve chatted with felt they were really underutilized.
I’m no expert on what the Seahawks did specifically on offense the last couple of seasons, but the issues at Halas Hall are pretty clear. The offensive line play has been really poor, and some of the choices — such as having 5-foot-8, 190-pound wide receiver DeAndre Carter block a defensive end on a running play from the 1-yard line — have been bad.
The Bears still are learning a new system and Waldron is learning his personnel. That’s a two-way street and you would hope for some natural improvement. Waldron wasn’t forced to work with a rookie quarterback in Seattle, but Caleb Williams is an elite prospect.
I wish it were easy to point at one thing and say, “He just has to do this better.” But the Bears have been a mess on offense. They’ve struggled to form an identity — besides being a finesse team running the ball — and they’re going to have a tough time against any opponent until they’re consistently better in the trenches.
Is there any hope for the run game? The Colts had one of the worst run defenses in the league going in and Bears still couldn’t run the ball efficiently. — @skelt88
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It can only get better, right? The Bears really can’t be less effective running the ball, so I suppose that’s a small measure of hope. It sure looks like they will start changing up personnel more. Roschon Johnson got 33 snaps in Indianapolis (D’Andre Swift had 48), and it’s possible — maybe even likely — the Bears want to start featuring Johnson more in the running game.
Swift is off to a miserable start with 68 yards on 37 carries (a 1.84 average). He has converted only one first down, and 16 of his carries (43.2%) have gone for 1 yard, no gain or a loss. The blocking hasn’t been good and he has struggled to choose the right angle at times. The Bears signed him because they deemed him to have speed and big-play ability, but he’s getting swallowed up.
Since 1970, only three running backs have had 37 or more carries with 68 or fewer yards.
- Harold Green, 1993 Bengals: 37 rushes, 57 yards (1.54 average)
- Reggie Cobb, 1993 Buccaneers: 45-68 (1.51)
- Ron Johnson, 1973 Giants: 37-55 (1.49)
My hunch is we’ll see more of Johnson and maybe more work for Khalil Herbert and Swift will be utilized less. But until the Bears start playing better on the line and executing combination blocks, it won’t matter a whole lot who is carrying the rock.
Why all the screen passes? If they didn’t work then, why would they work now? — @raybinnotrabbin
This is an area of the passing game that has really struggled. The Bears have attempted 14 screen passes — tied with the Kansas City Chiefs for third-most in the NFL — and are averaging a meager 2.2 yards per attempt. They are 13 of 14 for 31 yards on screens. Only five teams have a lower average per attempt: the New York Giants, San Francisco 49ers, Philadelphia Eagles, Jacksonville Jaguars and Cincinnati Bengals.
The Miami Dolphins are a heavy screen team with 18 attempts and are averaging 6.7 yards per attempt. The Chiefs are averaging 6.5. The Bears screen game has been a mess. It makes sense to have it in the playbook. They are quick and easy throws for Caleb Williams and allow him to get the ball out without facing pressure. You get the ball to skill players and allow them to do their thing.
But the Bears have not blocked well on the perimeter. It’s a lot of catch and tackle. The targets are having to make a defender miss immediately and can’t put a foot in the ground and go to daylight. Inside-out pursuit is tracking down these plays almost immediately.
There should be a place for screens in the offense and off run-pass options when the Bears have a numbers advantage on the outside. They’re a good deterrent to blitzes. The Bears simply are struggling to block on the perimeter, and that’s hurting the offense in many ways, the screen game included.
Is the organization concerned with Darnell Wright and has there been any thought of giving Kiran Amegadjie reps at right tackle with an eye to moving Wright inside? — @singal3
Wright has been up and down this season, which is a lot like his rookie season went. He got beat for a bad sack at the end of the loss in Houston. The Bears were facing second-and-10 from their 47-yard line with 1:07 remaining. Danielle Hunter had been working Wright on inside moves for the majority of the game. Hunter took a step inside and Wright bit hard, allowing the veteran to go easily around the outside for a sack. The 8-yard loss put the Bears in third-and-18 and really set back their bid for a game-winning score.
It was a letdown by Wright at a key point in the game, and the book on him last season was he can be up and down from play to play. He has to be more consistent. He’s a physical run blocker and he has all of the physical tools you look for in a right tackle. I don’t see the Bears considering moving him inside. There’s a lot there to believe Wright can be a very good right tackle, but the rest of the line has been rough and he hasn’t been getting good help from the right guard. The Bears want to bring Amegadjie along slowly, and he was active for the first time last week.
Some outside-the-box thinking may be required with the current collection of linemen, but I don’t think sliding Wright inside is a fix the team is contemplating at this point.
The defense is locked in. What’s the morale around the building with the loss to the Colts? — @just_acy
The defense has played pretty well, but the Bears will tell you there was stuff that needed to be better in Indianapolis. Jonathan Taylor rushed for 110 yards, just the third back to top 100 versus the Bears since the start of last season. The defense didn’t allow a 100-yard rusher in 2023 until the Lions’ Jamaal Williams and the Packers’ Aaron Jones reached that plateau in the final two weeks. Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson also had some big pass plays that coaches would tell you need to be eliminated.
That being said, I think morale remains relatively positive. Caleb Williams is showing growth and there’s a belief, at least internally, that some of what’s ailing the offense at the line of scrimmage can be cleaned up. I don’t see a situation brewing — not this early anyway — where the defense is hacked off at how its offensive counterparts are playing. I’ve seen that before but it has been a while, and that kind of sentiment doesn’t creep into the locker room this early in the season. The defense could have played better Sunday too.
Is there an offensive-minded version of Phil Snow that can lend some guidance in establishing a run game? — @gridassassin
That’s a good question. One would think the Bears should be able to figure this out internally. They’re not going to make wholesale changes to their blocking scheme in season. That wouldn’t make a lot of sense. They’ve placed a ton of faith in line coach Chris Morgan and expanded his title this season to include run game coordinator. The passing game coordinator, Thomas Brown, is a former running back, so my guess is he might have some ideas he can sprinkle in from time to time. But they have a new offensive coordinator in Shane Waldron and a new running backs coach in Chad Morton, and thus far it has been a mess.
I do agree with Matt Eberflus to a degree that a lot of the struggles are due to poor execution. You watch some of these failed run plays and the Bears simply are losing blocks and pretty much everyone has taken a turn. They’ve really had a tough time on the interior. Center Coleman Shelton has played poorly. The right guard situation, with Nate Davis and this past week with Matt Pryor, has been well-documented, and I don’t believe left guard Teven Jenkins has played well through three games. The best lineman to this point has been left tackle Braxton Jones.
It has to be confounding for the Bears because it’s not like they changed their blocking scheme or have a new line coach. I’m not sure an outside voice would help at this point, but I’d bet they’re willing to try anything.
Are we overrating the Bears defense? It’s been reported that scoring is down across the league and while the defense has kept opponents under 22 for three straight weeks, they don’t seem to be on the same elite tier as teams like the Steelers or Vikings who are averaging 10 points/game. — @quackinator100
I’m not sure how you rated the defense entering the season. I heard talk early in the offseason how this could be a top-10 defense, and that seemed reasonable to me. As training camp got rolling, I heard more and more that it could be a top-five defense. I don’t know about you, but that struck me as a pretty lofty goal considering they’re rolling with most of the same players they had last season.
The defense has been pretty darn good so far. It has faced one top-tier quarterback in C.J. Stroud and two who will rank near the bottom of the NFL in Will Levis and Anthony Richardson. Two areas the Bears were really poor in last season — yards allowed per pass attempt and third down — are dramatically improved. The Bears are sixth in yards per attempt at 5.63 and second on third down at 25%. They’ve gotten a yard better in the first category, while they were 29th on third down last season at 44.1%.
This is an improving unit, and as defensive tackle Gervon Dexter and cornerback Tyrique Stevenson develop in Year 2, I think you’ll see more improvements. It has the makings of a legitimate top-10 defense. To be better than that, the Bears need more big plays and takeaways and have to limit explosive plays.
I have a question regarding the line play and blocking assignments on the play which Laiatu Latu had the strip-sack on Caleb Williams. First, this is what I saw on the play: Cole Kmet was 1-on-1 against an edge (Latu). Marcedes Lewis chipped Latu weakly then stood around, looking for a man to block, before returning to help Kmet, all too late. Darnell Wright was 1-on-1 against the other edge. The remaining four O-linemen double-teamed the two defensive tackles. Could Shane Waldron have made the call expecting blitz? Should either Williams have checked out of the play or Coleman Shelton have made a line call to slide the blocking assignments? — Bill W., Elgin
You have to figure the Bears were anticipating pressure on first down because of the call for max protection. Williams had really poor statistics the first two games when blitzed, so the Bears were maybe looking for an opportunity to hit a big play against pressure.
There were multiple questions about this play in the mailbag, and Kmet owned it, saying he did a poor job. As you probably saw, Kmet tried to sell the play fake on an inside run, and as a result he had poor footwork and was a little off balance to handle Latu, who was lined up wide. Some have criticized Lewis on this play, but I really think it was Kmet.
“I was just lost there,” Kmet said after the game. “I’ve got to be better. Disappointed in my technique there. Just need to be better.”
For Lewis to have gotten to Latu, he almost had to go through Kmet, who didn’t dodge questions about the play and always has been an accountable teammate. Lewis was on the lookout at first for a blitzer too. If Kmet had done a slightly better job — he didn’t have to stonewall Latu — there probably would have been an opportunity for a chunk gain because Williams did the right thing and started to climb the pocket.
I didn’t see that as a situation where they needed to check out of the call or do anything differently scheme-wise. This was another play we can chalk up to poor execution. If Williams had a split-second more there, the ball would be out and it’s probably a positive play.
Does Shane Waldron understand the need for balance on offense and that getting more respectable/creative in the running game will lead to more time of possession, less pressure on Caleb Williams and better looks in the passing game? — @stefanparafink1
As lopsided as things looked in Indianapolis, where the Bears called 57 pass plays (52 attempts, four sacks and one scramble by Williams), they were relatively balanced considering they also had 27 running plays. It wasn’t totally skewed before the final drive, when the Bears took possession trailing 21-9 with 5:22 remaining. At that point they had called 46 pass plays and 26 runs. They had to go heavy throwing the ball as the clock was a factor, so 11 of the final 12 plays were pass attempts.
They weren’t profiting with any consistency when they did run the ball. It’s not lost on Waldron the Bears have to be more balanced. More importantly they have to be more effective when they run the ball. It’s a massive issue and huge question as they head toward the Rams game on Sunday.
Short of a pick-six or a fumble return for a touchdown, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a worse 4th-and-inches play in over 40 years of watching football. Can you find out what the most yards lost on a 4th-and-goal from the 1-yard line is in the NFL? — @cipherb85
D’Andre Swift lost 12 yards on the fourth-and-goal run from the Colts 1 during the second quarter Sunday. Swift was trying to make something out of nothing and was swarmed by nearly half of the Colts defense.
According to Pro Football Reference, it was the fifth fourth-and-goal play from the 1 since 1994 that resulted in a loss of 12 yards or more. The Bears were involved in two of the other four.
- Bears quarterback Andy Dalton was sacked for a 15-yard loss by Vikings linebacker Anthony Barr on Jan. 9, 2022, at Minnesota. The Vikings won 31-17 in Matt Nagy’s final game as Bears coach.
- Bears linebacker Roquan Smith sacked Texans quarterback A.J. McCarron for a 12-yard loss on Dec. 13, 2020, at Soldier Field. The Bears won 36-7.
- Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco was sacked for a 14-yard loss in a 2010 game against the Broncos.
- Dolphins running back Jesse Chatman lost 13 yards in a 2007 game against the Eagles.
That’s it for big negative plays on fourth-and-goal from the 1 that did not involve a turnover.
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