Caleb

Williams

One thing that immediately changed under new OC Thomas Brown: Williams rushed nine times for 70 yards and looked to have the green light to scramble. Given the ball down 20-19, Williams was immediately sacked twice to the two-minute warning, but was able to convert a new set of downs from third-and-19 with a 16-yard scramble drill completion to Rome Odunze and a back shoulder ball for 21 more yards to Odunze on fourth down. The new horizontal focus of the Bears pass game will serve them well down the stretch, but only superflex players should consider starting Williams into Brian Flores’ defense next week.

Thomas Brown, the Panthers’ former offensive coordinator, will take over play calling duties in Chicago. A year after flaming out as Seattle’s OC, Waldron couldn’t make it through one season with the Bears. Stacked with as much wide receiver talent as any team in the league along with No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams, Waldron’s offense ranked 31st in yards, with a meager nine touchdowns through Week 10. Chicago has the league’s fifth lowest offensive success rate heading into Week 11, and Williams has been the most inaccurate QB in football since the middle of October. The Bears are set to clean house following the season in an effort to save Williams from being one of the biggest draft busts in NFL history. It would be shocking to see Waldron get another OC job in the NFL.

Williams and the Chicago offense has collapsed in recent weeks, including in Week 10 against a bottom-dwelling Patriots defense that sacked Williams nine times. The rookie has taken a league-high 38 sacks on the season and has been sacked on 29 percent of his pressures — the third highest rate in the NFL. Williams has been the most inaccurate quarterback in the NFL over the past month. NFL executives told The Athletic that Williams had fallen back into many of the bad habits that plagued him at USC. “He is doing the same things he did in college in terms of holding the ball and being inconsistent with his reads,” a league executive said. “He could get away with running around, throwing the ball up for grabs, throwing across his body, and he had some success doing that. You don’t get away with that at the NFL level too often. I’m a little surprised they haven’t been able to clean some of this up.” Addressing Williams’ multitude of shortcomings will be the Bears’ primary goal in the final eight weeks of the season. He’ll almost assuredly have a new head coach and offensive coordinator in 2025.

It sure sounds like the upcoming evaluations that Eberflus is still conveniently “in the process” of as of his latest press briefing are going to be coaching-focused. Williams took nine sacks (9 sacks?) in Chicago’s Week 10 loss to the Patriots. Something has got to give. We’d be surprised if Shane Waldron saw more than another sunrise as Bears offensive play caller.

The boo birds were out in full force in Chicago as the Bears offense strung together another abysmal performance, failing to score a touchdown for the second straight game. A combination of offensive line failures, receivers not gaining separation, and Caleb Williams holding the ball long led to a whopping nine sacks by the Patriots defense. Williams did not turn the ball over but could not push the ball downfield, averaging just 4.0 yards per attempt. The Bears have major issues to address all the way down to the coaching staff before the offense will see improvement. Williams is a back-end QB2 against the Packers for Week 11.

The report comes from NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport. Williams injured his ankle on the Bears’ final drive and was clearly limited in his on-field movement afterward. Early indications suggest Williams is okay but the team will undoubtedly give the injured ankle a closer look on Monday.

The brilliant Matt Eberflus sent Williams onto the field for one final drive, down 20 points, with 2 minutes and 15 seconds left in the fourth quarter. Williams behaved as he had for much of the game, quickly departing the pocket and engaging in a wild scramble before reportedly spraining his ankle. Eberflus then allowed Williams to remain on the field for one last snap. Williams was plainly unable to move with urgency on the ensuing play and was promptly sacked. Fantasy managers should brace for a potential Week 10 absence.

Williams was uneasy and erratic in the pocket for the first three quarters in this one. The No. 1 overall pick had just 36 passing yards before the fourth quarter but was at his best on his last two offensive drives. Unfortunately, a poor play call by Shane Waldron had Williams handing the ball off to backup lineman Doug Kramer Jr. at the Commanders’ two-yard line, which resulted in a fumble and a recovery by the Commanders to squash the drive. On the following drive, Williams aired the ball out for gains of 16 and 22 yards and saw a downfield pass to Keenan Allen end with an 11-yard pass interference call on fourth down. Roschon Johnson would score two plays later, and a two-point conversion by Cole Kmet put the Bears up 15-12 with 25 seconds to go. Unfortunately, a Hail Mary touchdown pass by Jayden Daniels handed the Bears their third loss of the season in what was a highly-anticipated game between this year’s No. 1 and No. 2 overall picks. Williams and the Bears get the Cardinals in Week 9. He’ll look to rebound from a largely disappointing outing, and will be a mid-QB2 next week in fantasy.

Williams looked jetlagged from the flight to London in the first 20 minutes of this game. The Bears opened the contest with a pair of three-and-outs. Williams tossed his first touchdown in their third drive but was intercepted on the fourth. As has been the case in previous weeks, Williams settled in following a bumpy start and looked the part of the No. 1 overall pick and then some. The Bears scored on their final possession of the first half and rattled off three touchdowns on their first three drives of the second half. Williams nearly had his fifth touchdown of the day on a throw to DJ Moore, but Moore’s arm hit the ground inches before the ball crossed the plane. D’Andre Swift punched in a short score on the next play. The lows are becoming less pronounced and less frequent for Williams while the highs are trending up fpr Williams. He will flirt with a QB1 ranking when the Bears come back from their Week 7 bye to face the Commanders.

Williams started to shake off the rocky start two weeks ago in a high-scoring loss to the Colts. He continued to improve last week by completing 74 percent of his passes while getting the job done against the Rams. He put it all together this week with his best all-around showing yet. He averaged over 10 yards per attempt for the first time in his career. This was also his first game without multiple sacks. Williams was taken down by the Panthers’ defense just once. The rookie still missed a few throws, but the game is undoubtedly slowing down for him. He will look to keep the momentum going as a high-end QB2 for his Week 6 matchup with the Jags.