Things were going to take time in Chicago with so much new on the Bears offense. New coordinator, new weapons, new rookie quarterback.
Patience isn’t in the nature of fandom, but it was always going to be rewarded.
Lucky for the Bears, that reward is coming pretty quickly. Chicago blew out the Carolina Panthers 36-10 at Soldier Field on Sunday behind Caleb Williams‘ second 300-yard passing game this season. Williams completed 20 of 29 passing attempts for 304 yards and two touchdowns. He recorded a passer rating of 126.2, his best of the season. It was the second week in a row he had a passer rating of over 100. His two 300-yard games are the most by any Bears rookie quarterback ever.
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And it’s only Week 5. The Bears now sit at 3-2.
I’m still not suggesting this is a finished product. Carolina is going through… a lot right now. They aren’t a great team. But the Bears did what they were supposed to do against an inferior opponent and increased their NFL-best home win streak to eight.
Perhaps most encouragingly, it was also another well-balanced outing for the offense. The Bears ran the ball 36 times, including Williams’ scrambles. Williams threw the ball 29 times. And while Chicago used the run to get some tough yards, Williams used his arm to throw down the field — and connect. Through the early window, Williams had the second-longest yards per attempt average at 10.5. His total EPA for the afternoon was 16.6, the highest of his young career, according to Next Gen Stats.
Chicago’s offense had six plays over 20 yards, all of them passes, two of them for touchdowns. Both of those scores went to DJ Moore, who had his best game of the season, catching five passes for 105 yards and those two touchdowns. The other three Bears touchdowns (yes, Chicago got into the end zone five times on the day) came on the ground, with Roschon Johnson getting two of the hard-fought, bowling ball scores and D’Andre Swift getting the other.
In those situations, the Bears and offensive coordinator Shane Waldron didn’t overcomplicate things. They brought in jumbo personnel with offensive lineman Doug Kramer Jr. as a fullback. They bullied their way past the plane and are establishing an identity in the process.
In it, a bit that includes extra eligible linemen on those plays. We love to see it.
It’s incredibly evident that Williams himself has become more comfortable in the system as well with the players around him. There were multiple scrambles that ended up in a long completion, just like they did at USC. Part of what makes Williams so special is that when the play breaks down, he can improvise and make something happen. As a defender, it’s hard to stick on your guy for four, five, six seconds. Williams keeps his eyes up as he maneuvers away from pressure, and now that he’s on the same page with a lot of his receivers, those throwing lanes are easier to see and easier to take advantage of. That’s an incredible amount of stress on defenses as a whole and it should only get better as Williams’ rapport with his weapons strengthens.
Chicago’s offense has also had the luxury of extra opportunities and limited deficits thanks to its defense. The secondary gets the spotlight, and rightfully so given Chicago’s five interceptions on the season so far, but the biggest difference this year is the amount of pressure they’re generating. The interior defensive line was arguably the team’s biggest question mark on that side of the ball coming into the season and yet, head coach Matt Eberflus kept telling us it was going to be fine; that they believed in second-year defensive tackle Gervon Dexter Sr. and Andrew Billings. Well, Dexter generated a career-high five pressures and a sack on 20 pass rushes against the Panthers, according to NGS. That’s a 25% pressure rate. His 14 pressures this season are the most on the Bears and are tied for the sixth-most among defensive tackles after the early window.
The Bears defense is letting up just 17 points per game so far. It’s meant that even when things looked chaotic in the beginning of the season, Chicago was still able to steal some wins. The biggest reason the Bears are over .500 is the defense, and what’s more Chicago than that?
Meanwhile, these are Williams’ passer rating numbers so far:
Week 1 — 55.7
Week 2 — 51.0
Week 3 — 80.8
Week 4 — 106.6
Week 5 — 126.2
The Bears will now make the trip across the pond to London to take on the 1-4 Jacksonville Jaguars before getting their bye week. After that, it’ll be a duel of the 2024 No. 1 and No. 2 overall picks when Chicago visits Jayden Daniels and the Washington Commanders.
This may continue to be an up-and-down rollercoaster of a season for Chicago but the process deserves some trust. And of course, patience.
Carmen Vitali is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. Carmen had previous stops with The Draft Network and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. She spent six seasons with the Bucs, including 2020, which added the title of Super Bowl Champion (and boat-parade participant) to her résumé. You can follow Carmen on Twitter at @CarmieV.
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