Bears Fans - Please Allow Your Least Favorite Post-Game Rage Blogger On Earth (Me) To Explain Like A Rational Human Being This Time Why I'm So Worried About Caleb Williams' Development
Michael Owens. Getty Images.So…. what happened was… I got a little too angry watching the Bears game last Sunday and wrote a post-game rage blog that took a lot of heat from my fellow Bears fans as being overly critical of Caleb Williams'. I called his play "truly awful" and even went on to say I thought Ben Johnson knew it. And that was just in the title!
Hand up. I got mad at my sports team. Have you ever got mad at your sports team? Well, let me tell you. It sure happened to me.
Of course, THIS had to be the one blog that gets main accounted and spread across the internet leaving Bears fans and even members of this very company's podcast "The Stretch" wondering who the hell I even am. McGregor GIFs were flying off the shelves.
So I'd like a chance to bring down the intensity, tell you who I am, and - while not currently in a fit of rage - explain like a human being why I'm much more down on Caleb than it appears most Bears fans are.
The funny thing to all this is I've been blogging here a few years now, largely to a small niche of irreverent sports stats lovers. I spend more time than I'll ever care to admit in scraping swaths of sports data in my own personal relational database simply for purposes of querying dumb sports stats. That's pretty much my game here. Want to know who scored the most feet in made shot distance in an NBA Playoff quarter? (Luka Doncic). Or where Joe Flacco's 21-yard run a couple years ago with the Colts ranks in 39+ year old quarterback yards gained from a single run? (third to Brett Favre and Vince Evans). I'm your guy.
I use all this for my weekly NFL Sad Stats blog where I look up comically sad stats on bad teams as a coping mechanism so sad fans can laugh instead of cry. We usually also cry. The entire bit is set as if I'm the leader of a support group where sad fans of sad teams sit in a sad circle and get some shit off their chests so they don't let it ruin their day (don't be late this week Dolphins fans!)
Anyone picking up on the irony here?
The master has become the student, it appears. So as the leader of this made up, fake support group metaphor, I probably owe it not only to Bears fans to explore the root of this ire, but to myself.
Let me first address the haters, because the haters made some good points. Caleb was bad on Sunday. But "Truly Awful" should be reserved for Urban Meyer place kicker drills or Woody Johnson pep talks. Imagine what that dude sounds like at the holiday party as people are just waiting for him to finish some self-righteous bullshit so they can eat their meal I'm just going to assume wasn't even covered by the Jets. That's what "truly awful" should be reserved for, and Bears fans are right to call that out. I should know better. I'm old enough to have lived through "truly awful" as a Bears fan. The Craig Krenzels. The Jonathan Quinn's. Henry Burris getting sacked by himself as if he never even practiced walking backwards in his life. I've been there. I know the pain of realizing I'm actually somewhat curious what Nate Peterman might bring to our offense. THAT, my friend, is "truly awful".
I came into the season saying finding out whether Caleb Williams is good or not is the most fascinating NFL story to watch unfold. Any research methods nerd out there might literally think this was all some within-subjects experiment designed to find out what happens when you put the most hyped prospect in years with the shittiest coaching staff ever and then switch it all up to see how said prospect does with the most hyped up coach in years (and some actual investment in the offensive line).
I was on the positive side too! You're damn right I have a ticket for Caleb over 4,000 yards this year.
But here's why I'm as down as I am now through seven games of this "experiment". It's been obvious Caleb has worked on avoiding sacks and staying more in-structure in the offseason. He get's flak for being this presumed "don't have to earn it Gen Z" stereotype, but these improvements over the summer sure suggest to me he's reflected and put in the work to get better. That's not something I think you'd see out of actual self-entitled athletes.
I get that fans see this as a good thing and reason to have faith for additional improvements. And maybe you'll end up being right. But to me I'm majorly alarmed that despite these improvements, his accuracy is even slightly worse this year than it was last year. Avoiding sacks and staying in-structure are important. But they're only a means to an end. Accuracy is that end.
For me, the hope coming into this season was that the clown show coaching staff muddied the waters on us finding out what Williams' true talent was in his rookie year. And through about half the season (including after our bye), I haven't seen appreciable improvement in accuracy to make that case I was hoping this "experiment" would bare out. All despite the fact that the Bears played some of the league's truly horrific defenses up to this point. The dart to Burden against the Cowboys showed the God-given talent he is capable of, but I came out of the Cowboys game remembering plenty of inaccurate passes and defenders consistently five-yards away from a receiver.
You can only play who you play, I get that. But what exactly did Caleb do after that vs the mighty defenses of the Raiders, Commanders, Saints, and surprisingly awful Ravens? Yes, the Ravens got Roquan Smith and Chidobe Awuzie back last Sunday after a couple weeks out, but are you trying to tell me things were all good for this defense before that???
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Not that I'm particularly impressed with Ryan Poles at the moment, but the support system around Caleb has at least been adequately addressed from 2024 to 2025. Improvements have been made. INCLUDING the things Caleb was asked to work on, and we're still not seeing an upwards trend in accuracy. Especially inside the red zone as of late. Sure, some players might take a while to develop after dealing with a traumatic cluster of an offense in their rookie season and need more than seven weeks in a new system to start showing consistent growth. Drake Maye sure as hell didn't. But maybe Caleb does. It just seems we are now entering the "there's still a chance" realm with Caleb. Not what you want a year and a half after taking the first pick of an extremely deep quarterback class. A place where there's a hell of lot more examples of those that never found it vs those that finally did (Josh Allen for example).
So yeah - I guess when I see people happy that other parts of the team are starting to come together and just assume Caleb's development will follow - my brain does start to boil over a little.
Maybe liftoff is around the corner, but it sure seems we are only getting a semi-vaulted ceiling out of his potential vs the Field Museum we were excited about. I've been so ready to blame his foibles of last year on the clown show coaching staff, but with seven weeks of eerily similar data - that's becoming very hard to do. It seems like incremental improvement is most likely from here.
But look. There's really no choice at this point but to continue to watch and hope. The only argument I'd have for the Bagent Bros would be if Ben Johnson thought his wherewithal in the pocket might somehow show Caleb what he's missing out there. And until Ben thinks that's necessary, I won't either.
Sunday will be interesting. If Justin Fields can light up the Bengals defense, I certainly expect Caleb to as well. Hopefully some sad Bengals stats are in my future. All I can say at this point is I hope I'm wrong on the trajectory this all seems to be going.
Bear Down.