Bear Digest

Where Ben Johnson says Caleb Williams should have thrown last pass and why

Ben Johnson's view of how the final drive went might actually run contrary to what many Bears fans would think, and the same is true about the target for the final pass.
Gene Chamberlain|
Keisean Nixon makes the fateful interception and the Bears come away losers at Green Bay.
Keisean Nixon makes the fateful interception and the Bears come away losers at Green Bay. | Wm. Glasheen/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

Ben Johnson came away with a belief the final Bears offensive play against Green Bay and the entire drive, in general, occurred exactly as planned.

There was just one small detail: They didn't score.

A drive against the Packers that reached the 14-yard line and ended on fourth-and-1 with an interception in the end zone by Keisean Nixon was one with several potential points of contention but not for the Bears' coach.

More specifically, Johnson disagreed with the notion Williams should have thrown the ball to DJ Moore instead of Cole Kmet in the end zone, and also that they wasted almost 40 seconds at one point during a two-minute drill.

The pass to Kmet looked on the All-22 version of the game film like Moore had popped open for an easy checkdown first down or even a touchdown but Williams threw it up for the end zone and Nixon plucked the underthrown ball.

"From my perspective, it was a play that had a lot of options, just like I alluded to last night, and Cole happened to be the one that popped the most," Johnson said. "It’s a good play by Nixon for them. He came off of his guy and made a play on the ball.

"But had we seen it a little bit sooner and given Cole a better chance, I think we would have been pretty happy with that result. I still feel the same way I did last night on that play."

The plan for clock management on the drive had two points to it. One was to score before time ran out and the other was to leave Green Bay as little time a possible to try to counter once they did score.

"I thought we handled that situation," Johnson said. "I don’t know a  better way  to do it to be honest with you. Like I said, the less amount of time  that we would have left on that clock to score the better off we would have been."

They let about 32 seconds go off between the time Kyle Monangai gained 3 yards off left tackle on second-and-4 to the time he ran for no gain on third-and-1, setting up the fateful fourth-and-1 gamble with a throw to Kmet. They still had two timeouts left when the game ended.

If there was a play Johnson had real disdain for it was the third-down Monangai run that left them still a yard short of the first down. The use of the time left by Williams and the offense wasn’t an issue, the Bears’ coach said.

"The entire offense knew that we were looking to milk that clock down," Johnson  said. "The moment it got under a certain level I then relayed to the quarterback, 'OK, now we’re going to score the touchdown.'

"And so we were all on the same page and I thought we handled  that situation as beautifully as we could minus the execution on third-and-1."

Johnson emphasized how he thought wasn't just a final drive performed adequately.

"I thought that was actually really well done by the whole team right there on that one," Johnson said. "You get the ball back with 3:30 and you've got a decision to make. Do we go as fast as we can, and if we stall out, we get another possession potentially? Or do we go ahead and let this one be the last one? And we went with the latter."

The big question about the ending was why Williams didn't dump it off to Moore, who had one catch for minus-4 yards in the game.

“Yeah, I didn't see him as being the answer in that time," Johnson said. "I think he came open more after the ball was released from Caleb."

This was true, but the point was the timing. Williams didn't throw it soon enough to find Kmet wide open behind the secondary, and then if he had waited a second longer Moore did come into to the clear. In fact, the all-22 film shows Moore open with the ball in Williams' hand as he's throwing it to Kmet with only a slower-moving defensive lineman between them 7 or 8 yards away.

'Nixon was man to man with DJ and was trailing him and  ended up falling off and making a play on Cole there," Johnson said. "So, you know, it was a good play by Nixon and yet I still don't think if we get the spacing right and all that, and a good ball, that he's gonna be able to cover both of those players like that.”

It was the pass itself was where the problem rested, and Johnson said Monday he hadn't yet talked about what Williams was thinking before he threw too short for Kmet.

Whatever the explanation, it's the opposite of the way so many other drives had ended earlier this season and sets up the need for a huge bounce back on Sunday against Cleveland at Soldier Field.

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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.