Congratulations, Bears fans! We are technically on win streak number two of the 2025 season, and boy does that feel good to say. The Chicago Bears scored two late touchdowns against the New York Giants to steal a 24-20 victory on Sunday at Soldier Field.
It was a snowy, sloppy, and often frustrating afternoon, but Caleb Williams pushed through a litany of drops and a few of his own misses to lead the Bears to their fourth fourth-quarter comeback of the six wins they have this season. It’s something he’s made a habit of doing all year.
Let’s rewind three weeks to the Bears’ 30-16 loss to the Ravens. After that game, Ben Johnson was asked about Caleb Williams’ performance and said, “He played better this game than I think he had the previous two. When you look at it, all 60 minutes, and I’m not saying it’s perfect. I actually came away, from watching the tape this morning, encouraged that we took a step in the right direction here this week.”
Since that loss, Caleb Williams has continued to build on that step. Last week, he set a career high in On-Target Percentage at 84.6%, which came with his highest graded score of 2025, a 5.15. This week, he topped that with a 7.10, the best grade of his career and the second-highest quarterback grade of the 2025 season.
So, how does a stat line of 20 completions on 36 attempts for a 55.6% completion rate, 220 yards, two total touchdowns (one rushing), and an 83.1 passer rating end up graded so highly?
For starters, there were plenty of plays left on the field because of untimely drops. Three of those drops alone accounted for 75 unadjusted yards and two touchdowns. Two of the throws were graded as “Elite” and the other as “Great.” On top of that, a late pass interference on Rome Odunze wiped out another potential deep touchdown on a corner route.
Despite all the miscues, including several on crucial downs, Williams still posted a 56% success rate this week, which would rank at the top of the league over the course of a season.
When you add it all up, that’s more than 100 yards and three touchdowns worth of “Elite” plays that never made it into the box score. And even with those left on the field, this Bears offense sits at number one in big plays through ten weeks of the NFL season.
As always we will take a look at some metrics and nots and get into some play breakdown afterwards.
Benchmarks
(Totals and averages are all before week 10: Season totals are underlined, Season averages in Italics)
C/A: 158/257 (61.5%) | 19.8/32.1 (61.7%) | 20/36 (55.6%)
Yards: 1916 | 233.7 | 288
Touchdowns:14 | 1.8 | 2
Turnovers:4| 0.5 | 0
QB at Fault Sacks: 7 | 0.9 | 0
aDOT: *8.*7 | 11.0
Passer Rating: 92.2 | 83.1
True Passer Rating: 130.1| 135.2
Time to Throw: 3.07s | 3.79s
Time to Pressure: 2.65s | 2.90s
Pressure Rate: 31.04% | 37.78%
On-Target Rate: 61.3% | 66.7%
Poor Play Rate / Big Play Rate: 12.0 % PPR / 6.9% BPR | 6.3% PPR / 20.8% BRP
Game Scorecard
The full grading sheet for each play can be found here.
Game Notes
NFL Passer Rating / True Passer Rating / PFF Grade: 83.1/ 135.2 / 81.1
The average passer rating in the 2025 season sits at 93.6 through week 10. His 83.1 NFL Passer Rating would be considered a below average game.
A 135.2 TPR falls into the Good range, with 100 serving as the baseline for “Average.”
And on the PFF scale, a score of 80 or higher is Good. With a 81.1 Caleb Williams’ day was considered a good outing.
On-Target Throws: Season Average: 61.3% | Week 10 vs. Giants: 66.7%
Reminder: Completion % ≠ On-Target %. On-target throws are only counted on aimed passes, so throw aways, spikes, and deflections at the line aren’t counted. And drops are counted as on-target.
A bit of a dip from week 9 (which is to be expected from on On-Target rate north of 80%), but still ~5% higher than season average. So this is still encouraging growth.
Short-Level Passing (Behind LOS – 9 yards): 15/21 | 71.4% On-Target
Deep-Level Passing (10–20+ yards): 9/15 | 60.0% On-Target
6.3% Poor Play Rate (turnover-worthy + poorly graded plays) against a 20.8% Big Play Rate (great + elite graded plays)
A huge spike in big play rate percentage, setting a career high mark of 20.8% of his throws, which includes 6 elite graded plays and 4 great graded plays.
And with just 3 poor plays and no turnover worthy plays, he cut his PPR nearly in half this week from his season average.
Time To Throw: This week Caleb’s time to throw clocked in at a 3.35.
On 48 graded plays we say 12 plays being extended for a total of 72.02 seconds, or 6.25 time to throw on those plays.
This means his time to throw when not extending a play was just 2.10 seconds this week.
Pressure: For the second time this season the Bears allowed zero sacks, the Giants registered 17 pressures for a 37.78% pressure rate, but thanks to the clinic Caleb put on in sack avoidance, one of the leagues best pass rushes was left with a goose egg.
Deep Ball: While he may have only completed 1-of-6 attempts into the deep portion of the field, 2 of those incompletions were graded as drops.
He attempted 8 total throws deep including plays negated by penalty, 5 of them were On-Target.
PFF game him a 89.2 score on deep depth passing for the week due to this.
Play-Action: Caleb continues the trend of playing well with play-action.
In 2024, the Bears had a play-action % of just 17.4% of drop backs.
Per PFF: Caleb went 61-for-95 for a completion percentage of 64.2% of his passes, going for 788 yards, 4 touchdowns, 2 interceptions, 4 big time throws, and a 95.4 Passer Rating. All good for a 65.6 PFF score.
In 2025, the Bears are running playaction at a 32.1% clip.
Per PFF: He’s gone 61-for-93 for a completion percentage of 65.6% of his passes, going for 777 yards, 4 touchdowns, 1 interception, 4 big time throws, and a 101.4 Passer Rating. Which nets him a 74.2 PFF score.
In true play-action, Caleb went 6-for-8 for 74 yards and a 103.1 Passer Rating, with one of those incompletions being a drop.
Play Reviews
The plays we’ll be reviewing are presented in the order they occurred in the game.
Analysis: The first throw we’re looking at, and we’re starting big. The Bears are running a drive concept at the top of the screen with Rome Odunze running the deep dig, DJ Moore running a deep cross, and Luther Burden running a shallow cross giving Caleb multiple levels to attack the defense. Ideally hitting DJ Moore out of his break once the near side safety is being influenced by Burden is the throw to make here, but early pressure in the pocket forces Caleb to extend to his right.
As he is escaping the pocket, DJ Moore shows great burst out of his break leaving his covering safety in the dust, Caleb spots him in the endzone and fires a rocket, 45-air yards down field.
Now if you watch the video I pause it at a very important juncture. It’s at a point where DJ Moore beings to bend his route toward the front pylon of the endzone. Whether he misjudges the ball in the air, or is trying to close the distance between himself and the quarterback is left up to debate. But this small, maybe 1-yard at most, move toward the front pylon, makes his job of hauling in this perfect throw just slightly more difficult.
Like the seam throw to Cole Kmet to start the game last week against the Bengals, football is a game of inches, and this is a perfect example of that saying.
Analysis: On to the second dropped touchdown in as many drives in the first quarter. This time the Bears draw up a dagger concept, with Kmet running the 9 route to clear out the underneath Dig to Zacchaeus. Kyle Monangai and Luther Burden run stops underneath. This concept is designed to attack the middle of the field, and as Zaccheaus is coming open over the middle, pressure from the left side causes Caleb to escape the pocket once more.
He extends to the right once more, and Zaccheaus continues to flow with him, breaking towards the endzone to give him separation from the underneath coverage responsible for Burden. Caleb once again delivers a dart on the run, about 30-air yards on a rope on the run.
And this ends up as just a flat out drop. as the ball hits Zaccheaus in both his hands and falls harmlessly to the ground. Fortunately the Bears would turn this drive into points, as Kyle Monangai would run one in from 9-yards out.
Analysis: I wanted to highlight this play because it’s showcasing Ben Johnson’s bag of tricks. However, it got gummed up but the Bears would still make the most of it by converting the 4rd down. This is the play immediately after the Zaccheaus drop. The Bears are running short sails on both sides of the formation. The bottom side is what we’ll key in on. Colston Loveland is running the clear out route with Rome Odunze running the in, pay attention to what Rome does after the catch, he stutters with the ball, and I believe if DJ Moore wasn’t gummed up in the line of scrimmage, Odunze flips the ball to Moore for a hook and ladder style play, hoping to get DJ the corner and into the endzone.
Fortunately for the Giants, DJ could not escape the line, so Odunze holds onto the ball and breaks up field, picking up the first down doing so.
I hadn’t seen much discussion on this one, and it’s just a little ripple from Johnson’s playbook that maybe we see in the future.
Analysis: On to a missed opportunity deep early in the 2nd quarter. We have Burden running the deep out route, Odunze running what my old high school coach used to call a “Paco” route, which is a post-corner route, a deep double move that takes advantage of a defender flipping his hips to cover the post, only to hit the receiver on the corner route second move. With Burden running the deep out it only serves to free up more space to hit this throw. DJ Moore is running the underneath crossing route as a checkdown option.
This is another showcase of Caleb’s arm talent and I think it’s actually impressive he managed to over throw this, since were talking 50+ air yards while on the move. Rome separates from his coverage and is wide open for a chance to haul this in, but unfortunately Caleb over throws his man.
Impressive display of army strength, you just wish the accuracy was there for this one.
Analysis: On to a throw I really liked, despite it being wide open, it’s another example of Caleb throwing with touch over intermediate defenders for a big gain. The Bears are in a sail concept with Zaccheaus coming in motion to run the clear out route to get Loveland open on the bottom side.
Play-action was enough to get the intermediate linebackers to bite up just a step, creating an easier window to drop the ball over their heads. Caleb throws with a tick of anticipation, dropping the ball into the soft area between coverage zones.
Loveland hauls it in easily and picks up 20 on the play on a drive that would result in 3 points for the Bears.
Analysis: Onto another missed opportunity, but luckily Caleb (and Loveland) make a play immediate after this one to extend a drive that resulted in a crucial 7 points.
The Bears are running what I affectionately call a “Cargo” which is a combination Corner-Go (Cor-go, Cargo, get it?) route with short out underneath.
I don’t think we’ve seen this ran yet by the Bears, and if so I don’t think we’ve seen another like it out of a bunch formation. This helps the Bears here, as the Giants have initial issues passing off coverages, which allow Odunze, the primary receiver, to run wide open. Caleb delivers the ball with a good amount of anticipation, winding up before Odunze starts his break toward the sideline. The combination of the initial coverage hand-offs and Rome’s route running leaves him wide open down the field.
Unfortunately Caleb puts a little bit too much juice on the ball and it ends up being over thrown. This gets judged so harshly due to how open Rome was, and with an accurate ball it’s very possible Rome takes it the rest of the way for 6.
Analysis: We end with one of my favorite displays of anticipation, and may be influences by seeing a lot of people on social media saying Caleb can’t play in structure. This is a simple deep comeback route, but what makes these throws so impressive is the amount of anticipation needed to make these throws both safe, and successful, as the deeper you run a comeback, the more you need to throw with anticipation.
Caleb demonstrates just that, hitching for the throw when Burden is at around the Giants 33 or 34 yard line. Burden chops his feet and makes his stop at the Giants 28 and that ball is ON HIM IMMEDIATELY, the defender who was on Burden didn’t even have a chance to cover any makeup ground after the break, which allows Burden free reign to turn up field and work for some YAC, which he absolutely BULLDOZES 2 defenders for about an additional 10 yards.
A perfect example of high level anticipation, and frankly, trust between a both a quarterback and his wide receiver, and his own ability to deliver an on-time ball.
His final scores of 1st Half (2.80) / 2nd Half (4.30) / Game (7.10) gives him a solid “Great” game grade for week 10.
Of the seven quarterbacks I grade Williams placed 1st this week, putting up his best game of the season, topping last week in Cincinnati and the 2nd best game I have graded for the 2025 season.
Weekly scores of every QB I grade can be found here.
So, another week another come from behind victory, lead solidly by their quarterback in crunch time. The Bears will travel to Minneapolis to take on the Vikings in the second game of the divisional series with the Vikings. The Bears will look to rebound after suffering from come-from-behind defeat handed to them by J.J. McCarthy in week 1.
I can’t wait to see how Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams will handle the exotic Brian Flores defense. As always, Bear down!
Gary Baugher Jr. is a rookie contributor to WCG, bringing football insight backed by over 16 years of experience in organized football and more than 30 years as a passionate fan of the game. You can follow him on Twitter at@iamcogs.