Caleb Williams took his first game snaps as the Bears quarterback on Saturday and they were productive ones for the first overall pick of this year’s draft.
Williams was 4-of-7 for 95 yards while leading the Bears to a pair of field goals. A pair of drops kept his numbers from looking even better, but Williams converted a long third down with a pass to DJ Moore and found running back D’Andre Swift on a screen that turned into a 42-yard gain on the opening possession. Another completion to Moore and a 26-yard toss to tight end Cole Kmet highlighted his second possession.
Williams also picked up 13 yards on a run and head coach Matt Eberflus said it was a result of all the effort the quarterback has put in at practice.
“It’s good for him,” Eberflus said, via the team’s website. “It’s the fruits of his labor. He’s been working his tail off for 15 practices and then even before that all through the summer. So it’s good to be able to say, ‘Hey, all this drill work, all the things I’ve been doing, it’s paying off and I can see improvements.’ We’re going to look at this tape and look back and say, ‘What can I learn from this?’ There’s a lot of things we can learn from this process in getting these reps as he does in practice when he’s going against the one defense.”
It’s just the first step for Williams, but it was a positive one and good feelings about the offense have been in short supply around Chicago for a long time.