Windy City Gridiron
Reports out of an interview with Adam Hoge and Adam Jahns of CHGO, with Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson, suggest that Caleb Williams, along with a number of other starters, will not play on Sunday in the Bears’ first preseason game against the Miami Dolphins.
Many Chicago Bears fans and analysts have criticized this move, arguing that the new offense with its second-year quarterback needs as many reps as possible in the preseason in order to prepare for the regular season and realize the promise of this Ben Johnson-led offensive scheme. In fairness, that argument has merit. Repetition and practice are essential for any NFL offense to function, and it is particularly crucial when you have a young and inexperienced quarterback and a brand new, exceedingly complex, offensive scheme. But I’m here to argue the contrary position. Here are five reasons that Ben Johnson is right not to play Caleb Williams for a single snap on Sunday in the Bears’ first preseason game.
Football is arguably the most physical and violent sport in the world, and as such, football players are extremely prone to significant injuries that can cost players their seasons—even their careers. Just this week, the Los Angeles Chargers lost their starting Pro Bowl tackle, Rashawn Slater, for the season, with a ruptured patellar tendon. Research indicates that football has the highest incidence of injuries of the primary sports played in the United States. So while, yes, players need reps to learn and become proficient in an offense, every rep carries with it a certain risk of catastrophic injury. This is why the player association has worked so hard to reduce offseason practice, why teams use the guardian caps in practice, and why important players wear “red” shirts – indicating they are not to be hit – during practice. None of those protections are in place during a game setting, and while preseason games do not ‘matter’ and are essentially glorified practices/tryouts, they are game reps played at game speed.
Ben Johnson announced that a number of players would not be playing this Sunday, but the most important excused absence is Caleb Williams. And it is the most important because Caleb plays the most important position in football, and that position is the most important position in all of sports, in terms of its contribution to wins and losses on the field. Ben Johnson noted this fact in his opening presser for the Chicago Bears, where he pointed out that QB efficiency in the NFL had outstripped turnovers in terms of the marginal impact on wins and losses. So losing Caleb Williams to injury isn’t like losing any one of your twenty-two starters. Indeed, the loss of the #1 QB for any NFL team usually spells doom for that season. As such, risking Caleb Williams in a meaningless game means risking your entire season – not...
