Caleb Williams Week 7 QB Grade: Bears vs. Saints

Your Chicago Bears are on a four-game win streak for the first time since 2018, when Matt Nagy’s team pulled it off twice on their way to a 12-4 record and an NFC North title. This time, the Bears took care of business against the New Orleans Saints on Sunday afternoon, delivering a fairly convincing 26-14 win. Chicago racked up more than 200 rushing yards, forced four turnovers from Saints quarterback Spencer Rattler, and sacked him four times.

While the passing attack has cooled off over the last two weeks, the defense, ground game, and special teams have stepped up to fill the gap. It’s understandable to feel some concern that the passing game, led by second-year quarterback Caleb Williams, hasn’t looked quite as sharp since that Week 3 dismantling of the Cowboys. But progress is rarely linear. There are going to be hiccups. And while it’s not ideal that Williams has looked off recently, there’s still every reason to believe the experience he’s gaining, while learning a new offense and footwork base, will pay off and lead to the next jump forward.

After all, it wasn’t smooth sailing early on for Jared Goff and Ben Johnson, either. Their first six games together produced a 62.3 percent completion rate, an 11-to-6 touchdown-to-interception ratio, 12 sacks, and a 1-5 record. Then everything clicked. The Lions offense took off, and Goff hasn’t looked back since. For a deeper dive into that evolution, check out the excellent breakdown from Kirsten Tanis.

Despite the offense still struggling to fire on on cylinders, it leads the NFL in big plays through 7 weeks of play. Suggesting that when things get to where they need to be, this offense is going to take off.

So what did we learn this week? Let’s take a look at the usual benchmarks, notes, and play breakdowns.

Benchmarks

(Season Averages in Italics)

C/A: 19.6/31.8 (61.6%) | 15/26 (57.7%)

Yards: 235.8 | 172

aDOT: 8.5 | 9.2

Touchdowns: 1.8 | 0

Turnovers: 0.4 | 1

QB at Fault Sacks: *1 | 1

Passer Rating: 98.0| 61.7

True Passer Rating: *132.*2| 110.6

Time to Throw: 2.93s | 3.36s

Time to Pressure: 2.61s | 2.70s

Pressure Rate: 30.31% | 35.71%

On-Target Rate: 64.4% | 59.3%

Poor Play Rate / Big Play Rate: 12.3% PPR / 7.1% BPR | 15.6% PPR / 3.1% BRP

Game Notes

The full grading sheet for each play can be found here.

• NFL Passer Rating / True Passer Rating / PFF Grade: 61.7 / 110.6 / 62.4
• On-Target Throws: Season Average: 64.4% | Week 7 vs. Saints: 59.3%
  • This represents nearly a 10 percent dip in his On-Target rate from last week, with two of his completions even landing in the “off-target” range — the 15-yard completion to D’Andre Swift on the offensive pass interference call, and the 9-yard pass to Colston Loveland on 3rd down in the red zone.
    • It’s worth noting he had only 27 gradable plays this week, compared to...