Jumpman Without A Midrange - What To Watch For In Week 1 To Prove Caleb Williams Is Ready To Be Elite
Is Caleb Williams going to blossom into an elite quarterback this year or stay as this unrefined generational prospect who couldn't put it together? I think we're going to find out which in the first few weeks. Maybe even Week 1. Did a little data dive and pinpointed exactly what we need to see improve. It's more nuanced than "completion percentage". It's depth related. And it's route related. But if he makes a similar leap like he did last season in avoiding sacks - then we're going to have ourselves a top-five quarterback in the league for years to come.
That's a pretty awesome thought. Word out of camp has been glowing. He looks more comfortable. In sync with the command of his teammates and no longer drowning from learning the Ben Johnson system. That's great at all. But it doesn't matter unless it translates into fixing the broken part of his game. The midrange. You can't become a Jump Man in Chicago without a midrange.
Caleb's reputation so far is that he's a big game hunter that misses a lot, but strikes it big when he hits. And this pretty much only happens when it's late in the game and ice flows through his veins. It's not just a narrative either. You see this story play out in the numbers. Below we have a selection of passing stats split by the first three quarters of 2025 and the 4th quarter/OT.
There's so much more going on than his bottom of the barrel completion percentage. We'll start there anyway, because that's the simplest stat people focus on. Despite Caleb being known for turning it on late - he's still an abysmal 51.5% (ranked 29th) in the 4th quarter. You might wonder how his rank is better with a lower completion percentage vs the first three quarters. Simple answer: NFL average completion percentage is lower in the 4th quarter because winning teams don't pass as much, and losing have to take more risks.
Completion percentage over expected (CPOE) is a much better stat to look at because it controls for depth of target. Even so - it's still bad. He goes from being #33 of qualifying quarterbacks to just #23. Now let's get to something more interesting. Explosive pass percentage (completions of 20+ air yards) is pretty consistently above average no matter what quarter it is. Ranked 7th early and 5th late. That's a good figure to show off that "big game hunter" ability.
The question now is - how can someone who's a top-five deep ball passer also be incredibly weak in most general passing stats overall?
A few simple depth of pass splits start to answer this question. Here's where he stands with all qualified 2025 quarterbacks in EPA (expected points added) for short, medium, and deep throws. Slightly better than average throwing short (0-9 yards), bottom of the barrel in medium (10-19), and better than average going deep (20+).
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All in all - Caleb is great with your short quick hitters and deep ball while literally ranked 34/34 qualifying for middle length passes of 10-19 air yards. What in the world is this? I mean look at all the other gray lines of qualifying quarterbacks here. Caleb might be the only one who's EPA falls when throwing 10-19 yards vs 0-9. You might expect this efficiency drop from midrange in basketball. Not football. For my money this graphic visualizes just how confusing a quarterback this guy is. Dude is just a free bird doing his own thing off and on the field.
We can't have a jump man in this city with no midrange. This has to get better.
Hang on now. We forgot to split Q1-3 Caleb from Q4 Iceman. Same idea, but we'll ditch the other individual lines and just use an NFL average baseline to compare Caleb to.
Caleb gets marginally better in the short game come the 4th quarter vs prior. Probably just random error with a lower sample size for the final quarter. But the other two depths are very interesting. "Big Game" hunter Caleb Williams is slightly below average throwing deep until late when he produces almost 3x the NFL average EPA in 20+ yard completions. But the small sample size of 22 deep 4th/OT passes should worry you about this being sustainable.
I don't think there's any doubt about this - if Caleb Williams is going to be guy we all dream he could be, then this generations Jumpman is going to have to show us in the midrange. For the record, this accounts for about 20% of his total passes which is roughly on par with NFL average.
Now that we have an idea on the where, let's hone in on the what. Breaking his midrange down by routes you can certainly see what route has become Caleb's hitch.
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This is a bit alarming seeing as how all the routes that require throwing to a receiver in stride are very much awful vs NFL average under the same circumstances. And this is why I don't think there's anything more important to pay attention to for a Bears fan watching Week 1. If there isn't appreciable improvement in this area we are once again screwed. Doesn't have to be this 70% carrot Ben Johnson throws out there. But it's got to be much better. Otherwise, the book is definitely going to be out and defenses will play cloud or whatever to prevent those big game plays.
Then again - If he can improve similarly to 2025 in avoiding sacks, all bets are off for his ceiling and the ceiling of this team. No matter how patchwork our defense is this year. The plutonium will be fully enriched and the Bears will be the most exciting team to watch in an NFL with Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, and Joe Burrow.
I don't know which way this is going to go. But I'm excited to watch and optimistic that if Caleb can fix a historically unprecedented task of no longer taking sacks, he should be able to get comfortable enough in the offense to improve the area every defensive coordinator is going to test him at.
You want to become this cities next Michael? You better start hitting from midrange.