Bears suffer humbling loss to Texans, look dazed and confused on offense
I’m feeling a bit hopeless and helpless the morning after the Bears’ 19-13 loss to the Houston Texans on Sunday Night Football.
No, it’s not because they lost the game. We all kind of expected that to happen, even if we had the brass cojones to predict an upset victory.
No, it’s not because Caleb Williams threw two interceptions and misfired on a number of other throws. He’s a rookie quarterback in his second start. How many guys in his position actually have immediate success?
My feelings of trepidation stem from the performance of the Bears’ offensive line, and how concerning that is toward the growth and development of the Bears’ young signal caller.
With brutal honesty, I can admit that this season is all about the growth and development of Caleb Williams. Yes, when I sit down to watch the Bears play, I do it with the hope and expectation that they will win the game. I don’t sit there and hope for tanking for a better draft pick. I want to be entertained.
But, while I expect them to be good enough this season to fight for a playoff spot, I realize the chances of them actually winning the Super Bowl are small.
Thus, we turn our focus to Williams to examine and monitor whether he’s the long-awaited savior of the forgotten quarterback position, or just another also-ran in the organization’s 100-plus year marathon of futility at the position.
Through two games, Williams looks more like Justin Fields, Mitch Trubisky, and Rex Grossman than he does C.J. Stroud, Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, Dak Prescott, Jordan Love or any other quarterback providing his respective team stability at the position.
Yeah, I get it. We have to be patient with rookie quarterbacks. There is a far bigger sample size of rookie struggles than rookie successes.
But the greater point is that even when other rookie quarterbacks of the past have struggled, you’ve been able to gauge growth and development. And I’m just not so sure that with the problems along the offensive line that the front office, the coaching staff, the media or the fans will be able to determine if Caleb Williams is “the guy” or not this year, and that might sadly result in a wasted season.
I’ve got no problem with the way the Bears defense played on Sunday night. That’s a good Texans offense led by a solid young quarterback who only scored 19 points. That’s a strong effort from the Bears’ defense.
It says a lot for the Bears’ offense, which played woefully inadequate football, to have the ball on their final possession of the game and a chance to drive the field and win — not tie.
It’s just sad and unfortunate that we never got a chance to see what the offense could do given the pressures Williams endured.
I do want to take exception to those Bears fans excessively griping about offensive coordinator Shane Waldron.
I get it: when an offense performs poorly, everybody with a hand in that offense is fair game for criticism. I just don’t think Waldron takes the largest slice of the pie.
What do you want Waldron to call when the time to throw is infinitesimally small? I hate wide receiver screens as much as the next guy, but when there are defenders in the quarterback’s lap quicker than the receivers can actually run routes down the field, how do you expect those plays to work?
It’s time for the line to play big boy football. They’re going to have to improve from within because the answers to the problems that plague the line cannot be found outside the organization. No contending team is going to trade a quality starting offensive lineman. Maybe, at the trade deadline, a team that is in “sell” mode will be willing to deal one.
But for now, the organization is going to have to waltz with the linemen they brought to the ballroom. And it’s the responsibility of these linemen to strap it down and get better, and give Williams even a second more time to throw in the pocket.
Because if they can’t give Williams more time to throw, not only will the Bears lose games they could be winning on the backs of the defense, but evaluating Williams will become an almost impossible task.