Windy City Gridiron
As quickly as the preseason arrived, it has already passed in the blink of an eye, and now we turn to the final week before the regular season. The Chicago Bears closed out their preseason slate with an exciting 29–27 comeback victory over the Kansas City Chiefs, powered by three fourth-quarter touchdown drives led by Tyson Bagent. Both quarterbacks delivered strong performances. Caleb Williams played four drives in the first half, completing 11 of 15 passes for 113 yards and a touchdown, good for a 115.8 passer rating, while also adding 18 rushing yards on two scrambles. Not to be outdone, Bagent finished 20 of 28 for 212 yards and three touchdown passes, all in the fourth quarter, posting an impressive 128.9 passer rating. Let’s get into some breakdowns for the last time before the regular season!
Anticipation was brimming as Caleb Williams and the Chicago offense got off to a near-flawless start last week against the Bills, but that momentum was quickly stifled against the Chiefs on Friday, beginning with a botched exchange between Williams and Olamide Zaccheaus that immediately put the unit behind the chains.
Now, I’ll be the first to say: the game in its entirety wasn’t as bad as it looked. This wasn’t a great performance by any means. Caleb left some throws on the field, and the sack he took was entirely on him. On that play, in my view, he cycled through his reads too quickly, overlooking a couple of open targets, most notably Cole Kmet, and ultimately took a bad sack.
He did keep his time to throw manageable, at 2.85s, well under his 2024 season average of 3.03s.
On the flip side, though, we also saw plenty of the traits that made him the No. 1 overall pick. On the touchdown drive, Caleb stood tall under pressure and ripped a deep back-shoulder throw to Rome Odunze. He absorbed what could have easily drawn a flaggable hit and still delivered a strike, a throw that Rome should come down with nine times out of ten. Undeterred, Caleb went right back to him on the very next snap, this time dropping a ball in with nice touch on a corner route with outstanding anticipation. The ball traveled 19 air yards, putting it right on the border between a medium and deep-level throw, and it showcased exactly why the Bears are so excited about their 2nd year signal-caller.
We’re going to take a closer look at that 37-yard completion to Rome Odunze on the corner route. The Bears are running a short-China concept at the top of the screen with a flood-In concept to the bottom. The design essentially forces Caleb Williams to choose one side of the field to read, and in this case, he correctly looks to attack the weak side of the defense. If nothing develops, his next option would likely be a checkdown to the running back or trying to extend the play.
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