Bear Digest

Getting Caleb Williams to find top receiver requires drastic measures

Analysis: Bears QB seems to have a real problem locating one target in particular, and Sunday that target seemed to be hiding in plain sight with the game on the line.
Gene Chamberlain|
Caleb Williams rolls left and throws in Sunday's 28-21 loss at Lambeau Field.
Caleb Williams rolls left and throws in Sunday's 28-21 loss at Lambeau Field. | Tork Mason / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

In this story:

Chicago Bears

The failed comeback led by Caleb Williams could ultimately come back to haunt the Bears should they wind up entirely out of the playoffs.

If it happens, they could blame irony.

The irony is that for all of his 30 NFL starts, the narrative is Williams holds the ball too long. On Sunday, if only he held the ball and looked a half-second longer, he had the tying, maybe even a chance for the win right there in front of him.

Williams threw an interception on a sprint-out pass left as he tried to threat a needle needlessly to Cole Kmet in the end zone. A touchdown would have given Ben Johnson the option of going for the two-pointer and a win or sending it possibly to overtime.

If he had looked a bit longer, Williams had DJ Moore right in line of sight, just 5 to 7 yards downfield with no one around him for what amounted to an easy touchdown.

It seems like Williams never sees Moore, regardless of what happens. Maybe Moore needs to ask equipment manager Tony Medlin for a different jersey number because Williams never sees No. 2. Perhaps some of those wicked neon yellow cleats would do it.

On a day when Rome Odunze was gone, the next most obvious target had to be Moore, but all he had for the day were three targets and a screen catch for a 4-yard loss.

Instead, Luther Burden caught four passes for 67 yards, Colston Loveland four for 29 and Cole Kmet two for 42 yards. Olamide Zaccheaus even was targeted and twice he even held onto it for 7 yards, including a 1-yard diving reception and a TD.

"I rolled out and saw Cole and tried to give the big-boy ball and tried to let him go up for it because I saw 25 (Keisean Nixon) starting to sprint, and so I tried to slow him up and kind of give (Kmet) a chance in those moments.

"It's a gotta-have-it moment. They had a guy trailing me and I so I didn't feel that I could go get it myself."

The result was the interception but he had a third option that apparently he didn't see and rarely does. It was Moore.

He saw Colston Loveland on a 1-yard TD pass that was meant to be a tackle-eligible pass but was disrupted when Green Bay cut his primary receiver, Theo Benedet. Even then, Benedet got up quickly and had no one near him. But Williams had already moved right and made his throw to Loveland.

"If Theo popped, just give him a good ball, don't kill him with  the ball," Williams said of that play. "They ended up covering him down, and then I just went through my other reads and Colston ended popping open."

Yet, he didn't go through his other reads and spot Moore coming open right in plain sight later and not at the corner back of the end zone.

It was right in front of him.

The way the Bears came out of the game, it indicated one positive and that's how they had what they needed to compete in big moments.

There have been many doubters about this. Williams has produced five fourth-quarter wins on comebacks and another might have cemented his legend.

"It's a playoff atmosphere, going vs. a rival and things like that, so it's good for us to be able to find ways to rally and obviously we want to focus on having a better outcome and starting faster and all these different things," Willliams said. "But it's definitely useful for us for at some point if we go in the playoffs and things like that.

"It's something that we're going to use in the future and throughout my career, but we've got to focus on this next game coming in order to be able to get to that point."

They were going to need to do that regardless of whether they beat the Packers.

When they're getting around to finding ways to rally in the future, they might want to include Moore, especially if he's open for the first down and possibly even the tying or winning touchdown right in the line of sight.

Not every big play needs to be a long pass in the end zone.

Ben Johnson commented on how the Packers just made one more big play at the end.

It wasn’t even a big play. It was a short pass to Moore that would have done it, and then just trust him to do the rest.

It doesn't seem like he is trusted, though.

More Chicago Bears News

X: BearsOnSI

Published
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.