Everything about the Bears is messed up, from ownership to management to coaching to on-field performance to talent.
The lone bright spot in the darkness apparently is rookie quarterback Caleb Williams.
I say ‘‘apparently’’ because, well — horror to ponder — what if he isn’t so great, either?
Williams was the first player taken in the 2024 NFL Draft, an alleged savior who has excellent athletic ability, quick feet, a strong arm, leadership qualities and some intriguing stats. For instance, if he averages 284 yards passing in the Bears’ last two games, he will set the franchise record for passing yards in a season.
He could do that — break Erik Kramer’s 29-year-old record of 3,838 passing yards — and still be on one of the worst Bears teams ever. That means being the de facto leader on a horrendous team, now skidding through a nine-game losing streak. This is something that doesn’t quite compute.
Likewise, his care with the ball and ability not to throw interceptions (only five) can be correlated with his NFL-leading 60 sacks taken and lack of consistent downfield throws for big gains. Caring for the ball, holding on to it for too long, can become an obsession that gets in the way of risk-taking success.
Always in the back of my mind are the Bears’ other recent quarterback failures: Mitch Trubisky (taken second overall in 2017) and Justin Fields (taken 11th overall in 2021). Both left the team without having done much to elevate it. The Bears were 29-21 in Trubisky’s starts, but that relatively middling record looks like wild success compared with their 10-28 record in Fields’ starts.
Both were given chances, then dumped as mistakes. Neither is a starter in the NFL right now. That tells us a lot. But the nagging question about their tenures with the Bears is this: Were both OK-but-not-good talents who could have become very good, or did the Bears take two quality quarterbacks, fresh from college, and ruin them?
Trying to determine Williams’ value is difficult because the Bears are wretched from so many angles that it’s possible — likely, even — that they could bend even polished steel into pig iron.
It’s easy now to say that Trubisky and Fields weren’t up to snuff and that some large appraisal mistakes were made in drafting them so high and believing in them. Don’t forget that the Bears could have taken Patrick Mahomes instead of Trubisky, for instance. Nor should you forget that even had they drafted Mahomes, he might never have turned into the three-time Super Bowl champion he has become under the wing of Chiefs coach Andy Reid. The Bears can mess a guy up.
Williams has some nice stats, but nice stats often can come when you’re way behind and the defense doesn’t much care what you do because the game is already in the bag. This isn’t Williams’ fault. Throwing against prevent zones means your defense has been pretty bad.
But the Bears haven’t scored in the first quarter in four games. Could that be Williams’ fault? Remember, it’s not wrong to doubt everything on a dysfunctional team such as the Bears. And stats can lie. Or at least mislead.
Trubisky went 11-3 with the Bears in 2018. It was his second season, and he had monster games back-to-back, throwing six touchdown passes against the Buccaneers and three more against the Dolphins the next week. His passer ratings were 154.6 and 122.5. A month later, he threw three TD passes in a victory against the Lions and had a 148.6 rating. But the duds started to come a lot faster after that.
Fields, also in his second year, had almost-unbelievable back-to-back games in which he rushed for a combined 325 yards and three touchdowns and passed for five more against the Dolphins and Lions. But the Bears lost each game, and Fields clearly wasn’t the future.
The ghosts of Trubisky and Fields linger on the horizon like creatures from a modern-day ‘‘Christmas Carol,’’ haunting anybody who thinks they can master the Bears.
‘‘Through this year and through this time, I think I’ve gotten more comfortable,’’ Williams said when talking about game details Monday.
That was nice.
But the Bears are 4-11, sinking fast. And sometimes the ship takes down everybody with it, especially the man at the helm, the young captain whose future once was bright.