Windy City Gridiron
Ahhh, Week 1 of the NFL season. Hope springs eternal… right up until the 4th quarter hits and we’re reminded, painfully, that we are Bears fans.
All jokes aside, while the offense came out swinging against the Minnesota Vikings in the Chicago Bears’ 24–27 Week 1 loss, the game quickly turned into a showcase of inconsistency and missed opportunities, by both the quarterback and the team as a whole. There is, however, a few slight silver linings. Despite a downright ugly showing in the accuracy department, Caleb Williams and the passing attack still managed to finish top ten in the league in explosive passing play. That’s the good. The bad? Pretty much everything else from Williams’ debut with Ben Johnson.
By the numbers, it wasn’t pretty: worst in off-target throw rate (28.6%), 3rd-worst in CPOE (-8.0%), and 4th-worst in accurate throw rate (45.7%). Not exactly the kind of stat line you want from a Year 2 quarterback who’s supposed to be taking that next step.
Still, like every Bears game, there were flashes of promise mixed in with the frustration (though the bad far outweighed the good). We did see glimpses of the talent that got Williams drafted, sprinkled between the misfires. So, with that in mind, let’s dig into some of those promising moments… and, of course, the not-so-great ones.
The full grading sheet for each play can be found here.
There’s really no sugarcoating it, this was one of the worst 2nd halves I’ve ever graded that did not involve any turnover worthy plays. The 1st half was definitely better, but still far from clean.
I did something a little extra this time. If you check out the grading sheet, take a look at the “Notes” column. You’ll see asterisks (*) marking certain plays. Those are snaps where, after carefully going through the film, I felt Caleb “passed up” an open receiver. There’s been plenty of online discourse about this topic, so I wanted to dive in myself and see just how often it happened.
Now, important disclaimer: this is completely subjective. We don’t truly know what the QB’s eyes are seeing, or what the exact read progression is on that play. We can make strong inferences based on head position, route concepts, and defensive coverage, but unless we’re actually in the huddle or film room, it’s still just an educated guess. That said, I marked down 8 such plays where it looked like an open option was left on the table..
