Sometimes you can’t win with people. Caleb Williams had a stat-filled day against the Indianapolis Colts last week. He threw for 363 yards and two touchdowns. Unfortunately, he also had three turnovers, though two weren’t entirely his fault. Predictably, many critics zeroed in on that to dismiss his performance. So this week, Williams focused on protecting the football. He went 17-of-23 for 157 yards and a touchdown. Chicago beat the Rams 24-18. Was this good enough? Nope. People declared it bust-worthy. Cole Kmet has heard enough of that.
The tight end has experienced plenty of quarterbacks in his short career with the Bears. They ranged from Mitch Trubisky and Justin Fields to Andy Dalton and Nick Foles. It isn’t hard to tell which ones are capable of playing in the NFL and which are just talented athletes trying to. After the victory over L.A., Kmet went to his quarterback’s defense. He made it clear to Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune that Williams’ performance was critical to the offense’s breakout in the second half.
“Huge. I think he does a good job protecting himself for the most part. I thought he played an unbelievable game too. I know everyone wants the 300-plus yards, three touchdowns. But that’s NFL football what he played today. He did a really good job of keeping us in rhythm.”
Cole Kmet knew Williams made the plays when needed.
He just didn’t throw a lot of passes. This was because the Bears had a lot of success running the ball, posting 131 yards. Chicago was also in a lot of short fields. Their average field position was the 41-yard line. Those conditions made stacking more yards unnecessary for Williams. The bottom line is that he was money on the Bears’ final three scoring drives. His nifty screen pass to D’Andre Swift set up a field goal. His dime to D.J. Moore in the back of the end zone extended a one-point lead to eight. Then a 22-yard strike to Kmet put them in Rams territory, setting the stage for Swift’s 36-yard TD run to clinch the win.
Good quarterbacks are often smart enough to realize when a more conservative approach works best. Early on, Williams recognized that the defense was playing great and the running game was starting to click. The last thing he needed to do was obsess over his stat line and press for big plays. He chose to play point guard, distributing the ball, moving the chains, and sustaining drives. As Cole Kmet said, it worked beautifully. Don’t criticize the kid for playing smart football.
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Caleb is getting acclimated pretty quickly IMO. He’s made quite a few mistakes in the early games but he is really accelerating rapidly past that. I know some people are lauding Daniels success which is great too. And for the record, I considered it a dilemma to choose between the 2 Heisman guys + people downvoted me on that. I still like Daniels but I’m Bears #1 and I’m excited about CW. I watched the Kurt Warner review that T.Gena recommended and just watched the Chase Daniels review last night. I am a believer in Caleb. He is growing leaps… Read more »
I remember when Brenda, our First Chair Oboe player, “clapped back” at Sheila, our Second Chair Oboe player. Well, Sheila went all “crazy eye”, with her eye all twitching real jittery-like, and then she closed fisted punched Brenda in her left tit.
Someone needs to punch Cole Kmet in the left tit.
Kmet is correct. Yet imagine if Caleb had had C Connor Williams for support and protection. He would have been even more successful.
Monte! Monte! Miss you! Should have remained a Bear.