Bear Digest

Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson pursue less fantastic Bears finishes

The goal for the Bears is to steamroll opponents, or at least play strong throughout instead of reaching a point where they face a final drive to win every week.
Gene Chamberlain|
Caleb Williams gets into do-or-die mode and spins out of the grasp of Brian Burns to try and make a play Sunday.
Caleb Williams gets into do-or-die mode and spins out of the grasp of Brian Burns to try and make a play Sunday. | Mike Dinovo-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

The Bears offense and Caleb Williams have begun to take on the look of procrastinators.

It's not uncommon for NFL teams to do a majority of their scoring in fourth quarters, but the Bears seem to be taking this to the extreme with double-digit scoring in the final quarter in each of their last three games, including 14 in Sunday's win.

They're tied for fifth in fourth-quarter scoring at 8.3 points a game, fifth in first-quarter scoring at 6.7, then seem to go into the tank for two quarters. They're 20th in second quarters at 6.7 and 17th in third quarters at 4.9.

Williams acknowledged over the last three games they put themselves into situations late where they had to score. It's definitely an incentive when they're in do-or-die situations.

“I think anytime somebody goes into the fight or flight mode and you just start flying, you get into a mode and you don't feel anything," Williams said. "You're flying at that moment and you have to go do it.

"So, you go into the survival mode and I wouldn't say that I get  faster or I get more decisive, anything like that. I think it just comes down to we have to win a ballgame and here we go.”

Don the Superman cape. But it goes beyond this.

Late in games, defenses have pretty much exhausted any surprises they can throw at the offense and this matters.

"I think there's times where we can just be better overall and then, towards the end of the game, it's time to go in a game and you just get into that mode," Williams said. "And like I've said before, defenses have shown you throughout the whole game what they've game planned for you. And so, you get into a rhythm, you get into a flow towards the end of the game.

"The mindset changes. I would say just in the sense of, we have no other option at  that point, other than try and score and fight and fight and fight. I think that's what we do and what we've done."

The goal now might be to get their offense moving more evenly throughout the game and scoring even more. Johnson put some of the blame on his play calling for this scoring disparity.

"I know why I did everything in the moment, why I call things, everything has a reason," Johnson said. "And yet when it doesn't click the way we want it to, then I just question whether I should have done something or done something else.

"At the end of the day, we're all in it together. I want those guys to understand that I take a lot of ownership of what we put on tape, as do they. It’s really important that they understand we're all in the same boat.”

It's a full team concept. It's complementary football. If they achieve the better balance with execution and game plan, then pair it with strong defense, their current stretch of six wins in seven games could grow into something wild.

"We do want to showcase and I want to showcase throughout the whole game that we can play all 60 minutes, and we can put up points and defense can hold their offense and we can start steamrolling," Williams said. "But until that happens, we're going to keep winning games whichever way we need.”

The last two games and four times this season, that's meant taking it in the fourth quarter.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.