KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The most maddening part about Caleb Williams’ preseason finale wasn’t that he was finding new ways to make mistakes — it was that the Bears quarterback was repeating the errors that have plagued him all through training camp.
That’s what frustrated the quarterback. That’s what exasperated his head coach. And that’s what has to change.
Williams’ development will take time — both he and Ben Johnson have admitted as much, as impatient as they may be for progress. But by duplicating the mistakes he’s made on the backfields of Halas Hall under the lights of Arrowhead Stadium on Friday night, Williams violated one of the core tenets of his new coaching staff.
“We won’t make the same mistake twice,” offensive coordinator Declan Doyle said earlier this month.
Williams did, though, over and over again in a game that, thanks to the Bears’ backups, ended in a last-second touchdown and a 29-27 victory.
That’s the context — far more than his end-of-preseason stat line against mostly backup defenders — that’s cause for concern almost two weeks before the Bears’ Sept. 8 “Monday Night Football” opener against the Vikings.
Williams finished the preseason with a 17-for-25 for 220 yards, two touchdowns and a 122.1 passer rating. Filter out his plays against the Bills’ second string and the Chiefs’ backups Friday, though, and you get a more accurate description of his play: 6-for-9 for 41 yards, no scores and a 76.6 passer rating.
“Every single chance that you go out there, you want to perform and go out there and not have a slow start …” Williams said after Friday’s game. “It’s frustrating, but you also understand that it is preseason, and the situation is different than it is in-season.”
Not for long. The Bears have only three more practices before Vikings game week — sessions Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. If they’re going to improve, they’re running out of practice snaps.
The Bears have watched their second-year quarterback ride the rollercoaster for the past month. After the Bills game Sunday, Johnson praised Williams for finally stacking standout practices. This week was less sharp. Friday was a wakeup call of his own making.
Specifically, there were three plays Friday night that looked too familiar to those who have witnessed those training camp snaps over the past month:
• The first play of the game, Williams mangled a fly sweep handoff to Olamide Zaccheaus, epitomizing the troubles that the Bears quarterback has had with pre-snap timing — getting under center, calling for motion, and using his cadence properly — since Johnson first started installing his offense. Williams fell on the fumble for a loss of four.
Johnson sounded annoyed by the mistake, given that the Bears rehearsed their earliest scripted plays via walk-through before the game.
“We didn’t execute them very well,” Johnson said.
• One play later, rookie tight end Colston Loveland committed a false start, the latest example of pre-snap penalties that at times have ground training camp practice to a halt.
“Those are typically plays we’ve gone over multiple times, and having those issues is frustrating,” Williams said. “Definitely need to fix that.
“That’s a big point of why we practice, why we have preseason: to get more reps, have those moments, be able to have a moment like that and be able to learn from that and correct it.”
• Later in the first quarter, Williams lined up in the shotgun on second-and-three from his own 44. He looked right, hoping to find DJ Moore on a slant or running back D’Andre Swift in the flat. With no one open, Williams didn’t throw the ball at their feet or out of bounds. Rather, he stepped up in the pocket, got trapped behind center Drew Dalman, looked to slip out to the left and was sacked by Chris Jones and Charles Omenihu.
Those are the kinds of plays that got Williams sacked more than all but two quarterbacks in the history of the NFL last season.
“I was frustrated with myself for that — just [do] anything other than taking a sack,” he said. “Get the ball out of my hands. If I scramble, being able to stay up, stay on my feet and go make a play. … Probably most of those moments, I’ve been able to understand the situation better.
“Being second-and-three, the chances are a lot higher on making a play and being able to get the first down on second-and three rather than third-and-eight.”
Everyone gets pressured. Some, like Chiefs star Patrick Mahomes over and over again Friday night, scramble and look downfield for back-breaking completions. Bears safety Kevin Byard calls it “the second play” — what Mahomes finds after he leaves the pocket.
Williams didn’t find the same kind of magic.
“At that point, it’s, ‘Go make a play,’” Williams said. “And that isn’t what happened. It was a second-and three and it ends up being a sack, and you don’t want to take sacks on first and second down.”
Asked what aspects of his game he feels good about, Williams ticked off building blocks. He says he’s recognizing defenses faster and feeling blitzes more easily. He claims he’s making the right checks at the line of scrimmage.
Those are important, but don’t mean much unless you follow through with production. Williams didn’t Friday until the Chiefs put their backups in.
“It’s obviously moments that we don’t want to have,” Williams said.