LOS ANGELES — It’s a sight familiar to many football fans in Southern California. Used to be in cardinal and gold, now in navy and orange. But the moves haven’t changed when quarterback Caleb Williams spins out of a collapsing pocket to extend a play, before throwing across his body to turn a negative play into a big gain.
Just three weeks into his rookie season with the Chicago Bears, that part of Williams’ game from his time at USC has translated to the NFL.
“His awareness of not even looking over here, but he can see somebody coming without even seeing them,” Rams outside linebacker Byron Young said. “I’m just watching him play and he gets out of sacks that are supposed to be sacks.”
Stopping the No. 1 overall pick from April’s NFL draft from creating off-script plays will be the challenge facing the Rams (1-2) this week when they travel to Soldier Field to face the Bears (1-2) – especially after their first experience facing a slippery quarterback this season.
In Week 2 against the Arizona Cardinals, the Rams could not bring quarterback Kyler Murray to the ground. Players left their feet, leaping to try to grab an ankle or leg, only to find themselves face down in the grass empty-handed.
“It takes all 11 guys to stop a quarterback like that,” Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula said. “If you’re not on it on the screws, it’s going to happen like what happened two weeks ago. So it’s definitely a good learning opp for us.”
The Rams are trying to use that game tape to help them this week.
“Rushing the right lanes, the right gaps, not getting too high on the quarterback level, knowing that you can’t just choose a gap with a guy like that,” Young said of what he wanted the pass rush to learn from Arizona. “[Williams is] smart enough to know that, ‘OK, he’s coming right here, I can go right here.’ So you gotta definitely be smart with that.”
Despite Williams’ elusiveness, the Bears’ offensive line does present a good target for the Rams. The unit has allowed 36 pressures, seventh most in the NFL, on 136 pass-blocking snaps. Which could provide an opportunity for breakout games for rookies Jared Verse and Braden Fiske.
According to Pro Football Focus, Verse leads all rookies with 13 pressures and Fiske is second with 11. Verse is also second among rookies with a 22.8% win percentage, signifying the rate at which he wins his reps against blockers on pass rush snaps.
But that has amounted to just one sack between the two rookies, Verse’s takedown of Jared Goff at the end of the first half in Week 1.
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No other rookie has more than one sack through three weeks this season. But completing the pass rush is an emphasis for the rookies and the Rams in general entering this weekend.
“They have been disruptive and causing havoc,” Shula said. “We just need to stress finishing up plays and putting yourself in the best positions at practice. That’s the hardest thing, is in practice you get in some of those positions and you assume that they make the play. That’s the thing that we’re learning as coaches and as players, that we need to keep stressing the finishing aspect of every single play.”