Everything seems to be slower and more arduous for the Bears than the rest of the NFL, and it’s been a grueling wait for quarterback Caleb Williams and their offense to get moving.
It took a while Sunday against the Rams, too, but after an aimless, dragging first half, they started to look much more like they imagined heading into the season. Williams fired darts downfield, D’Andre Swift swerved through the defense and the Bears pulled away for a 24-18 win at Soldier Field.
Nothing means more for the Bears than Williams’ progress, which will determine not only whether they reach their short-term goal of making the playoffs but their big-picture aspiration of escaping perpetual irrelevance. While Williams still has a long way to go, he took a significant step with his sharpest all-around game yet.
He strung together a modest stat line of 17-for-23 passing, 157 yards, a touchdown and a 106.6 passer rating and made major plays when the Bears were desperate for them. He threw for more than double that yardage a week earlier, but that performance was rife with questionable decisions, inaccurate throws and shortcomings in key moments.
His numbers weren’t jaw-dropping against the Rams, but he was effective, and completing 73.9% of his passes was a big jump from 59.3% over his first three games.
“He played an unbelievable game,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “Everyone wants 300-plus yards and three touchdowns, but that’s NFL football that he played today. He did a really good job of keeping us in rhythm.”
The most encouraging aspect was how decisively and confidently Williams passed under pressure. He also seemed more comfortable managing the pass rush infiltrating the pocket, especially Rams rookie Jared Verse regularly barreling in on him, and said he is “more in the flow of football” than he was at the start of the season, when there had been a nearly 10-month gap between his final game at USC and his pro debut.
Williams steered the Bears through back-to-back touchdown drives at the end of the third and start of the fourth quarter to push their lead from 10-9 to 24-15, which was the most margin they’ve had this season.
The 74-yard touchdown drive was their longest of the season, and Williams finished it with a nine-yard pass on third down to DJ Moore in the middle of the back of the end zone. Williams picked up on some confusion in the Rams defense, which led to linebacker Christian Rozeboom trying to cover Moore and quickly seized on the mismatch.
Williams sailed it just over Rozeboom, and Moore did an exceptional job planting his feet inbounds as he made the catch.
“When you leave a ‘backer on DJ, that’s the matchup that you wish for,” Williams said.
The Rams got within 17-15 on a touchdown on the ensuing possession, but Williams answered again. On second-and-10 from his own 42-yard line, he saw the Rams’ linebackers bite on play action, recognized their safeties were split wide and hit Kmet down the middle of the field for 22 yards.
“You’ve got a guy with the confidence to rip it like that — it’s a really good throw,” he said. “It’s hopefully a thing we can keep going back to, especially if we get the run game going. You get those linebackers to climb up and you just rip it over their heads.
“That doesn’t look open, necessarily, but once you know those linebackers are stepping up in that shell look, it’s open and you’ve just got to throw it.”
Swift weaved for a 36-yard touchdown run on the next play, and the Bears had control the rest of the way. He finished with his best game as a Bear, too, with 165 yards of total offense and a touchdown.
Williams completed 9 of 10 passes for 86 yards and a touchdown in the second half.
The Rams have been bad defensively this season, but so were the Titans and Colts, and the Bears never got their offense going against them. And any progress is valuable for Williams, who said, “Steady growth throughout the season is extremely important for myself, but also for the team.”
That’s because while the Bears hope he develops into their long-awaited franchise quarterback, they also need him to play well enough to win now even amid the typical turbulence of a rookie season.
He checked both boxes Sunday. Playing efficiently and avoiding disasters will be good enough for the Bears to beat a lot of opponents, at least in the first half of the season, and that’s also a very promising performance in Williams’ overall trajectory. He’s the first Bears rookie quarterback to put up a 100 passer rating in one of his first four starts since Kyle Orton in 2005.
“He looked down the field for the shots, and when they weren’t there he took the checkdowns,” coach Matt Eberflus said. We got a lot of yards on those.
“He’s got to keep improving every single week, but… taking care of the football is the No. 1 job of the quarterback, [and] he did an excellent job of that today.”
All that means for now is that Williams is on the right track. But considering how his first three games went, it means a lot.