Caleb Williams left his last game limping.
The offense has done that for the last two weeks, and the Bears have no one to blame but themselves.
“Most of the things have been self-inflicted,” the Bears’ rookie quarterback said this week. “Penalties, inaccurate passes, us being not efficient in the run game contributes to that, because then you get to longer downs. … Going back to the pass game, just being more detailed with myself and the guys and executing. It comes down to that.”
If it doesn’t happen Sunday, it might not all year.
The Bears, who have won nine-straight home games, host a Patriots team that would draft first were the season to end today. The Patriots allow the 12th-most points and 25th-most yards in the NFL, and only three teams have fewer sacks.
The Bears are a touchdown favorite, the largest margin of the Matt Eberflus era.
Williams is set up, then, to try to regain some momentum before the Bears begin an eight-game gauntlet that starts and ends with the rival Packers, features all six NFC North contests and games against the 49ers and Seahawks. The Bears’ remaining strength of schedule is the most difficult in the league, even with the Patriots on it.
The hope at the beginning of the season was that Williams would be ready for the toughest part of the schedule. His momentum is heading the opposite way, though. In the last two games, he’s posted the worst passer rating and completion percentage in the NFL. The Bears have led for exactly 25 seconds.
Williams has been stellar at times this season — the Bears scored 95 points in wins against three bad teams before the bye — but has been far from the slam-dunk success story some expected when he inherited perhaps the most accomplished skill position players ever bestowed upon a rookie quarterback picked first overall.
True halfway points have been hard to come by since the NFL switched from 16 games to 17 in 2021. But among the 18 rookie quarterbacks who have thrown at least 50 passes in their team’s first eight games since then, Williams ranks middle-of-the-road. He’s eighth in passer rating, fifth in passing yards, 12th in completion percentage and tied for second in touchdown passes. No one has been sacked more.
“I think it comes down to details, and execution that stops us,” Williams said.
The season is no longer in its infancy. The Bears can’t rue the lack of details the way they did in training camp. That’s on Williams, who has battled uncharacteristic bouts of inaccuracy, and offensive coordinator Shane Waldron. The play-caller’s decision to hand the ball off to offensive lineman Doug Kramer at the goal line against the Commanders might have cost the Bears the game. His inability to move the ball at all in the following game was even more disturbing.
Williams was seemingly set up for success last week, only for the Bears to muster only three field goals against a Cardinals defense that ranked 26th in rushing yards allowed and 27th in passing yards allowed.
Williams instead became the first rookie ever to throw the ball at least 40 times, get sacked six or more times and fail to throw a touchdown.
Williams limped off the field after being put in danger by Eberflus, who insisted on keeping the rookie in the game despite two backup tackles blocking for him in a blowout. That Williams’ ankle turned out to be fine — he didn’t miss a minute of practice this week — was the only thing keeping Sunday’s loss from being one of the most disastrous in recent memory at Halas Hall.
Bears fans have seen enough false positives over the years to be wary of whatever Williams does Sunday against the league’s worst team. The more relevant question is how the game prepares him for the Bears’ rival.
The Packers, who always loom over Halas Hall, await. Until then, the Bears have one more game to find a breakthrough.
“I think it’d be huge, honestly, just for the vibe of the team as a whole as we’re going into the second half of the season — just carrying that confidence into next week. …” receiver Rome Odunze said. “We see the schedule. We see these teams we’re facing in the second half of the season are doing great … We’re in one of the toughest divisions in the league.
“We definitely know we’re going to have to go get this one and be prepared to be on our ‘A’ game for the rest of the season.”
Williams needs to get right Sunday. Because his road only gets tougher from here.
“You start catching rhythm, you catch momentum — and then from there you’re on an upward trend,” Williams said. “We’ve got to get that going this week.”