INDIANAPOLIS — Caleb Williams didn’t believe his ears.
“I threw it 52 times? Jeez,” he said.
It wasn’t good for him or for the Bears, who slogged through their second-straight road defeat, losing 21-16 to the Colts in a game that, for quarters at a time, had all the excitement of a darkened cell phone screen.
A Bears offense that is openly searching for its identity didn’t find it Sunday when it decided to drop Williams back to pass a whopping 56 times. He was sacked four times, including when rookie defensive end Laiatu Latu stripped the ball from him at the Bears’ 11 midway through the fourth quarter in the game’s most significant play.
A franchise that’s counting on Williams improving with each game needs him to stay healthy throughout the season to reap the benefits. That won’t happen if they keep throwing this often.
A team that plays outdoors in the cold needs to run the ball better than it did Sunday, when offensive coordinator Shane Waldron called run plays that averaged 2.3 yards against the NFL’s worst rushing defense.
Williams was diplomatic when asked if the team’s identity could be him becoming just the 10th Bears player ever to throw 52 passes or more.
“I do whatever the team needs,” he said. “If it’s 50 times, it’s 50 times. I can’t have the two [interceptions] with those 50 attempts. If it ends up being 10 times and I complete nine of those 10 and we have 300 yards rushing and four touchdowns? …, I’m fully aware, fully ready to do whatever the team needs.”
This isn’t what he needs. Or what the team needs.
Williams went 33-for-52 for 363 yards, two touchdowns, two interceptions and a 80.8 passer rating. All are career highs and, on the surface, prolific — Justin Fields threw 40 passes only once with the Bears, and even then, he totaled only 166 yards.
You shouldn’t believe your eyes any more than Williams did his ears, though. Most of the damage Williams did came in a cosmetic fourth quarter when the Bears were chasing points against a defense playing soft coverage.
When the Bears trailed by two scores or more, Williams went 15-for-19 for 133 yards, two touchdowns and a 130.9 passer rating. The rest of the game, he went 18-for-33 for 230 yards, two interceptions, one fumble and a 51.3 passer rating. Take away the 44-yard Hail Mary to DJ Moore at the end of the half that fell a yard short of the end zone, and Williams had a 44.5 passer rating when the game was within one score Sunday.
Asked if he was worried Williams might have provided a false positive, Eberflus praised his ability to operate in a two-minute drill, ostensibly, for the entire fourth quarter.
“Sometimes you’re down by a score, sometimes you’re down by a field goal,” he said. “You certainly have to move the ball in that situation.”
Thanks in part to the miscues of Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson, who finished with a passer rating of 39 and two interceptions, the Bears were down by five when they forced a punt with about seven minutes to play in the game.
On the first play of the drive, the Bears blocked with five linemen and two tight ends against a four-man rush. Latu beat tight end Cole Kmet around the left end.
“I just lost there,” said Kmet, who had 10 catches for 97 yards and a touchdown. “I gotta be better. Disappointed in my technique there.”
Williams said rookie Rome Odunze, who had a career-high six catches for 112 yards, had just popped open behind a linebacker. Latu punched at the ball with his right hand as Williams began his throwing motion. The ball squirted forward and was recovered by the Colts’ Grover Stewart.
The moment felt a lot like when Mitch Trubisky and Fields would fumble late. So did the interceptions Williams threw. Three plays after hitting Odunze down the left sideline for a 47-yard gain in the second quarter, Williams was late in throwing a short route to DeAndre Carter and was picked off by Jaylon Jones. The cornerback got a second one in the third quarter, when Williams threw into a tight window and hit Odunze in both hands, only for the ball to carom into Jones’ right arm and he tapped his toes along the sideline.
“He looked good — beside the turnovers,” Moore said.
That’s a huge caveat. The turnovers are what cost the Bears the game.
Kmet said that at “at times he looked like the No. 1 overall pick.” Those plays didn’t come often enough, or in the right moments.
Williams wasn’t as good as the stat sheet showed Sunday, and the Bears’ offensive identity remains murky. Odunze said the offense was “making steps,” Kmet said it “felt better” and Moore said it felt like it was “coming alive.”
Just imagine what they’d say if the Bears scored more than two touchdowns.
“Having the offensive identity is – I think it is brewing,” Williams said. “I think it is a lot closer than it was the week before, or weeks before. And I think us figuring that out is going to get this thing going. I think we’re right there.”
It didn’t feel that way Sunday.