New Bears play-caller finds QB Caleb Williams some answers
Bears quarterback Caleb Williams was detailing what was different Sunday when he mentioned something that seemed obvious: New offensive coordinator Thomas Brown called the plays into Williams' helmet faster than predecessor Shane Waldron ever did.
"Thomas being in control, just getting a few calls in super fast," Williams said after the Bears' soul-sucking 20-19 loss to the Packers after a blocked field goal. "As soon as a play happened, Thomas was right on the headset giving me the [next] play."
The quick calls enabled the Bears to break the huddle and get to the line of scrimmage, where they had time to vary their cadence "so the D-line can't get a jump on the snap," Williams said.
"Those small things always tend to be large," Williams added.
He uttered those words after the 10th game of the season. Certainly the Bears were aware of Waldron's slow relaying of play calls and tried to fix it before he was fired last week, right?
Right?
"That [play-calling] was way better in terms of the energy and the timing of it," coach Matt Eberflus said Monday. "That's going to be good going forward, too."
But why wasn't it fixed before? Why didn't Eberflus realize Williams wanted the calls faster? Or that Williams performed better with short drop-back passes?
And if he realized it, why didn't he change anything before firing Waldron?
A team that spent all season declaring how proud it was of its communication in meetings couldn't provide what, in retrospect, seems like obvious support for a No. 1 overall draft pick.
The solution Eberflus settled on was drastic, forcing Williams into a situation that few rookie quarterbacks have had to deal with: the firing of a play-caller midseason. In an act of leadership, Williams apologized to his teammates in a meeting last week for his role in a sputtering offense that led to Waldron's dismissal.
Perhaps sensing the toll a difficult week was having on Williams, Lincoln Riley, his former coach at Oklahoma and USC, called him last week. Williams was reminded of Riley's advice when Williams was impatient to start as a freshman: Keep going.
"Keep our head down and find ways to win," Williams said.
The Bears didn't win Sunday, but they did start to find answers. That Brown figured some things out in five days — he wasn't named play-caller until Tuesday, after Eberflus hemmed and hawed for a day — speaks poorly to the Bears' operation over the preceding weeks. His first game as play-caller led to only 19 points but nonetheless qualified as a step forward for Williams, who was steered back on track, going 23-for-31 for 231 yards and a passer rating of 95 in his best game since the Bears left London.
Brown helped build up Williams' confidence by calling quick-hitter plays. Williams released the ball an average of 2.42 seconds after getting the snap, the fastest time this season, according to NFL Next Gen Stats. He was 15-for-18 on quick passes, on which he was pressured 20.5% of the time, another season best.
That's his strength. Pro Football Focus gives Williams the fifth-highest grade in the NFL on short throws. His grade on throws of 20 or more yards is the worst.
After the Cardinals and Patriots sacked him 15 times over the previous two games, Williams was sacked three times Sunday. Two came on the first two plays of the Bears' final drive. Williams stepped into the pocket and was hit on first down. On second down, Packers defensive end Rashan Gary shoved left tackle Braxton Jones into Williams and sacked him.
Wide receiver DJ Moore played a major part in the quick-throw game, finishing with more yards in the first half than he'd had in a game since Oct. 6 against the Panthers. Brown was creative in getting Moore the ball. In the first half alone, Moore took a pop pass while in motion for five yards, a fly sweep for five more yards and a screen pass for 16.
"He's like a running back with the ball in his hands," Eberflus said.
Those fly sweeps and pop passes were based on motions that Brown used more than Waldron ever did. He's a product of the Rams' coaching tree, with pre-snap motion a hallmark of coach Sean McVay's offense.
Waldron favored going no-huddle to try to give Williams clues at the line of scrimmage about what the defense was planning. Pre-snap motions gave Williams a different kind of advantage — to either displace defenders before runs or give receivers leverage on throws.
"Then, sometimes, it also mixes up people's eyes, safeties and things like that, to be able to hit explosive [plays]," Williams said. "To be able to gain easy-access throws with maybe DBs and things like that, backing off, once you get a motion going their way, maybe a fast motion or a slow motion going their way. They'll back off and get a free-access [release] for five yards, maybe more, with the type of guys we have. So those motions help us."
So did condensed formations. With 39 seconds left in the third quarter, the Bears lined up with three players — receivers Rome Odunze and Keenan Allen and tight end Cole Kmet — split left. They stayed tight to the formation, all three inside the left number with the ball at the left hash. Williams pitched to D'Andre Swift, who ran behind pulling tackle Braxton Jones and a pulling receiver, Allen. Allen kicked out cornerback Carrington Valentine, Jones crunched safety Evan Williams to the ground, and Swift ran up the left sideline for a 39-yard touchdown.
Angles from condensed formations and scrambles by Williams helped the Bears rack up four running plays of more than 10 yards after managing seven combined their previous three games.
Consider that another answer on a day in which Williams, for the first time in three games, started finding some.
"You work super hard throughout the week, and then not being able to go down and score is frustrating and tough, as you may assume," Williams said. "Being able to do it [Sunday], I think it builds confidence for us."
