Well… at least Caleb Williams looked good.
The Bears got smacked around by the division-leading Detroit Lions, 34-17, on Sunday. The loss drops them to 4-11 on the season and it was their ninth defeat in a row.
The navy and orange got off to a rocky start, going scoreless in the first quarter while allowing the Lions to put up two touchdowns and two field goals en route to a 20-0 start. The Bears coughed up two fumbles on consecutive drives when Williams and Rome Odunze mishandled a handoff on one series, followed by an Odunze fumble on the next drive after a 19-yard catch-and-run.
It was not a good look for the Bears’ ninth-overall pick in this year’s draft.
It wasn’t until early in the second quarter that Williams led a 14-play drive that covered 70 yards in 6:18 and concluded with a 1-yard touchdown strike to Cole Kmet. The Bears added another touchdown on their very next drive when Williams dropped an absolute dime down the sideline between two defenders to a streaking Keenan Allen, who outraced them to the end zone for a 45-yard score.
Unfortunately, in between those two scoring drives, the defense gave up another touchdown to the Lions, squashing any kind of momentum the offense could build.
The second half wasn’t much better for either team. The Lions opened the third quarter with a 5-play, 79-yard touchdown drive and the Bears followed that up with a field goal drive of their own. The teams traded punts and turnovers on downs to close out the game.
Williams finished the game completing 26-of-40 passes for 334 yards, 2 touchdowns and no interceptions. He now has 3,271 yards, 19 touchdowns and 5 picks on the season. He’s just 567 yards behind Erik Kramer’s 3,838 mark for the franchise record for most passing yards in a season.
The most interesting storyline we have left for the 2024 season is can Williams break that record? He needs just 283.5 yards per game over the final two. For any other Bears quarterback in any other season, I’d say there is no chance that’d happen. But these are different times and Williams is a different quarterback. He’s had four games of over 300 yards this season, and even adding one more of those marks would significantly reduce the amount of yards he’d need in the other remaining game.
I feel like the Bears have got their man, that long lost franchise-caliber quarterback who has eluded this organization for decades. For him to not only survive the physical beating he has taken this year, leading the league with 60 sacks, but to also thrive as a rookie in a historically inept city for quarterback play is nothing short of impressive.
I know I sound like a broken record, and there’s nothing novel about this thought that every Bears fan already knows, but I firmly believe that if the Bears address the offensive line this offseason, Williams’ stock is going to shoot through the roof next year. Especially if they hire a bright offensive-minded coach to lead the way.
That kind of fresh hope will have to wait until the months of January through April when the coaching hires commence and when free agency and the draft kick off.
For now, we have two games left to watch this team kick and flail their way to a likely 4-13 finish. But there are also two more chances to watch this young signal caller cement his rookie season legacy with the organization and provide us with hope and optimism moving forward.
