One thing has become apparent through the first three weeks of the 2024 season. The Chicago Bears offense is still a mess, but for once, the quarterback isn’t one of the primary reasons why. Quite the contrary. Caleb Williams has been the only one able to generate actual scoring drives. It hasn’t been perfect. He’s thrown four interceptions over the past two weeks. Turnovers are something you can’t have. However, when your offense also boasts one of the worst rushing attacks in the league, one has to be more understanding of the situation.
What really makes Bears fans irate is that the coaching staff hasn’t done enough to help him. They don’t seem to have any answers on making life easier for the rookie. Well, in actuality, they do have a solution. Unfortunately, they seem dead set against implementing it. Over the past two weeks, Williams has thrown 11 passes from under center. He is 7-of-11 for 125 yards in those situations. His only blemish is an interception on Sunday that hit Rome Odunze in the hands.
It is plainly evident that the quarterback hits chunk plays far more often when working under center. So, of course, the Bears only implement it a few times per game.
For Caleb Williams, it can’t be about what is familiar.
The primary reason for the overabundance of shotgun plays is that the quarterback ran them at USC. Chicago probably wants to ensure he’s comfortable. The problem is that this offensive line is incapable of blocking those formations consistently. One of the benefits of playing under center is it helps the quarterback establish better timing with his receivers. His drops should line up with how they run their routes, allowing him to know when and where they will be. It is also much more effective in play action situations, making it difficult for defenses to read fakes.
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Speaking of rushing, excluding end-arounds to wide receivers, the Bears ran the ball 16 times for 50 yards from under center against Indianapolis. While this is only 3.12 yards per carry, it’s way better than the 10 runs for 13 yards they had out of shotgun. Running under center at least allows the offensive line to go forward. That, in turn, will give Caleb Williams more play-fake opportunities. Under center might be considered an outdated approach to some. Who cares? It is the Bears’ responsibility to help their young quarterback.
@PoochPest Did you also heppen to notice that somehow Fields can now throw over the middle with success? Fields may not be the second coming of Peyton Manning when it comes to reading defenses, but he’s not nearly as bad at it as the Bears coaching staff made it seem. Now that that ship has sailed, we have a new QB who is also not playing as well as his talent indicates he should be. I don’t think “the QB” (insert your choice here) has ever been the problem, so we’ll soon see if this offensive staff manages to figure… Read more »
@Pooch: Yep, Mooney came up big at the end of the Eagles game. Not sure why he didn’t show those skills last year.
@PoochPest — Clearly, Ryan Poles believed he had his Mooney replacement in the form of Tyler Scott. Scott has “world-class” burst (10-yd. split in 1.50 seconds — compared to Xavier Worth: 1.44; Velus Jones Jr: 1.46; D’Von Achane: 1.48; Tyreek Hill: 1.50). But. . . Someone forgot to check if Scott can track a pass (not well); or catch the football — 11.3% drop rate, in 2022, at the University of Cincinnati. Due diligence seems to be limited to “darts and putt-putt” in Ryan Poles’ Halas Hall office. There are compelling reasons why I call Poles a “perpetual rookie” NFL… Read more »
Good article here, Erik. I knew we were too shotgun-reliant, but I didn’t know the outcomes were so vastly different, as you pointed out. If a hack blogger can find these inconsistencies, why can’t our coaching staff?
I asserted, with much support, over three months ago that the advantages of the QB playing under center easily exceeded those of the shotgun, not even, but especially, for rookie QBs for so many obvious reasons. How about pushing Caleb for a 50-50 split depending on game situations etc… The running game and play-action game are too important for his success not to do so.