Hogs Haven
A homecoming for Caleb Williams and a major test of the Commanders
It’s week 8 of the NFL season and the 5-2 Washington Commanders will be facing a 4-2 Bears team at home in Northwest Stadium in Landover, MD on Sunday at 4:25 pm EDT. The Bears had a rocky start to the season, starting 1-2 with losses to the Texans and Colts, but turned things around and the Bears have won three straight games against the Rams, Panthers, and Jaguars.
On offense, the Bears are in their first year under OC Shane Waldron, former OC of the Seahawks and pass game coordinator of the Rams under Sean McVay. Waldron comes from the McVay/Shanahan tree that likes to feature an outside zone run game and heavy use of play action. Waldron’s offense struggled in the first few weeks of the season and Waldron himself blamed the problems on communication, particularly along the offensive line. Focusing on that communication in practice has turned things around; the offense only mustered 3 touchdowns in their first 3 games of the season, but has achieved 13 touchdowns in their last 3 games.
On defense, the Bears are led by defensive head coach Shane Waldron as well as DC (and former DL coach) Eric Washington. Eberflus’s defensive scheme in past years has been criticized as a vanilla cover-2 zone defense with infrequent blitzing, but has taken a step forward this year with the hire of Eric Washington in the offseason. Last year’s Bears defense was ranked 17th in defensive DVOA, whereas this year’s unit is ranked 7th. As the Bears frequently drop back 7 in coverage and rush 4, they are schematically built more to stop the pass than the run. Given that the Bears also have a relatively low blitz rate of 21.9% (ranked 22nd in the NFL), they rely heavily on the talent of their DL to win matchups up front. Improvement along their DL is another reason the defense has taken a step forward this year, with a mid-season trade to acquire DE Montez Sweat in 2023 and the emergence of 2nd-year DT Gervon Dexter this year.
I asked Bill Zimmerman of Windy City Gridiron five questions to better understand the state of the Bears and what to look for in this game.
1) What do you think so far about Caleb Williams and why do you think his play has improved so much in the last few weeks compared to the first few?
The growth of Caleb Williams has been truly remarkable. It’s like nothing I’ve seen recently in the NFL and it’s a completely foreign concept to the city of Chicago. What’s largely happened here is seeing the game and understanding the game. The Bears didn’t have a simplified version of their offense like many teams do with rookie quarterbacks. They gave Williams the keys to the offense on September 1st and said, “Figure it out, kid.” Now obviously there was guidance there from the coaches, but he is...
