During television timeouts Sunday, Caleb Williams held his water bottle in the air and squeezed.
Pooof.
The Bears quarterback watched the water droplets fall to the ground, trying to measure the direction of the wind like a golfer would with blades of torn grass.
The breeze during Sunday’s 36-10 win against the Panthers was blowing about 7 mph at kickoff, but it swirled bizarrely, even by Soldier Field standards.
“I would spray the water bottle,” he said, “to figure out how aggressive the wind was.”
Welcome to Soldier Field, kid.
Consider Sunday another lesson for Williams as he learns how to quarterback the Bears. To do well at home, he’ll have to learn how to play the wind.
“He’s gonna have to learn how to do that as we go — because it’s gonna get worse, it’s not gonna get better,” coach Matt Eberflus said Monday. “That’s the way Chicago is. We’re gonna get ice, we’re gonna get wind, we’re gonna get snow, we’re gonna get all the elements here.
“It’s going be good. We’ll practice outside, too, so we’ll get used to it.”
Detailing Williams’ first dance with the Soldier Field wind:
Throwin’ in the wind
Williams felt the breeze on his first pass, an out route to Keenan Allen. He threw it so wide of the receiver, rather than out toward the left sideline, that Allen had to throw out his left arm to bat the ball down and prevent an interception.
The wind kept grabbing Williams’ passes. On third-and-5 with about a minute to play in the first half, he threw a wheel route up the right sideline to tight end Cole Kmet. The tight end was wide open, as cornerback Troy Hill charged too far into the flat.
Had Williams hit Kmet in stride, the tight end might have run for a touchdown. The ball sailed toward his back shoulder, though, and Kmet caught the ball and fell out of bounds for a gain of 25.
“I tried to juice it in there a little bit because it was a little bit longer throw, especially on [the east] side,” Williams said. “The wind, I guess, kind of drops in and just pushes the ball.”
Kmet, who played college baseball and football at Notre Dame, needed to concentrate.
”It was like a slider coming at you — I’ve caught a few of those in my day,” he said. “The wind was pretty intense out there … When he throws the ball well, he spirals it to really cut through the wind nicely.”
It did two plays later, when Williams threw a perfectly placed 30-yard skinny post into the end zone for a DJ Moore touchdown. Williams took the snap and looked right to keep the safety in place and Moore beat cornerback Mike Jackson, who was in man coverage.
“It was just a dot,” Moore said. “We worked that in practice. When he threw it, I was like, ‘Man it’s a touchdown.’ …
“That wind, I was surprised everything was on the money for us with the ball being in the air like that.”
Take the air out of the ball
Kmet pointed to Williams as one reason the Bears’ run game was improved the last two games. The quarterback is getting better at changing run plays at the line of scrimmage when he sees a defensive front he doesn’t like.
“Him understanding fronts and where the down safeties are at for our run scheme, that’s so big-time, getting us into the right run checks,” Kmet said. “He’s just been better and better at that every week.”
It’s not always smooth. With about six minutes in the first half, Williams was in the middle of making a protection check at the line of scrimmage when center Coleman Shelton turned his head toward the quarterback to correct him.
“We’ve got [expletive] fire, man,” he said, successfully calling out the Panthers blitz.
Williams threw a four-yard completion to Rome Odunze.
The quarterback’s ability to identify defenses at the line of scrimmage is made all that much more important when the Bears go no-huddle, as they did often Sunday against an inexperienced Panthers linebacking crew.
“It’s not perfect yet, but it’s getting better,” Eberflus said. “Defenses give you different looks and disguise different things, and sometimes you’re right when you do it.
“Oftentimes you’re right, but sometimes you’re not. We’re getting better at that week to week. It’s just with time and experience and exposure to it.”
Screen em
Even though the Bears are comfortable with Williams’ arm strength — “He can cut through the wind,” Eberflus said — there will be times at home when conditions force them to throw short.
That’s why Williams’ success running play-action passes Sunday was so encouraging. He went 6-for-7 for 100 yards and a touchdown — a 30-yarder to Moore — on play-action passes.
Moore was split left in the first quarter when Williams took a shotgun snap, faked a handoff up the middle to running back D’Andre Swift and watched Moore pop open on a crossing route. Keenan Allen ran a crosser in the opposite direction and ostensibly put a basketball pick on Jaycee Horn as the cornerback chased Moore in man coverage.
Pro Football Focus gave Williams the third-best grade in the NFL on play-action passes among all Week 5 quarterbacks. On the season, he’s 22-for-37 for 300 yards, two touchdowns and one interception on play-action passes.