The following was written for my Sports Commentary class at Northwestern:
By: Izzie Begley
As many rookie quarterbacks do, Caleb Williams is experiencing growing pains in his first NFL season. This could be attributed to the new offensive scheme he is playing in, or the much higher skill level his opposing defenses play. Perhaps even a bit of both. At USC, Williams had a relatively spread out offense where he had the ability to rely on his mobility and he thrived improvising. In the NFL, you can’t really do that. Aside from the Bears offensive line being abysmal, he is playing in a new system that is much more structured and gives him less freedom to improvise. The speed of the NFL game forces him to make decisions faster.
Williams’s early career struggles begs the question how much of this is him getting used to the NFL and how much of it is attributed to coaching? In most cases, elite coaching leads to elite performance, and that has never been more evident than this year. More specifically, good coaches make good quarterbacks. So as far as Matt Eberflus is concerned, well…
After spending his first three years in Chicago, just about everyone had written off Justin Fields. He was traded to the Steelers this past offseason and there was an understanding he would back up Russell Wilson. With Wilson going down before the start of the season, Fields was offered a chance at redemption. No one expected much, but with the help of Mike Tomlin and Arthur Smith, he looks like a different football player.
Justin Fields’s time in Chicago was notorious for poor pass protection, slow feet in the pocket, untimely decisions, extremely low and inconsistent conversion rates on third down and inconsistent play calling. Tomlin and Smith were smart enough to simplify the game for Fields, which Eberflus and former Bears head coach Matt Nagy never pursued. Tomlin and Smith did not make Justin Fields play in the same offensive scheme that Russell Wilson would have. They did not try to fit a square peg in a round hole. They adapted to the personnel they had and therefore changed the offensive scheme. For Fields, they started with a run-heavy offense that mixed low-risk passes and RPOs. As Fields’s confidence increased, they slowly incorporated a few deep shots down the field, selectively. Because of this, Fields is much more effective in the pocket with a 95.3 passer rating, a 73.3% completion rate and with only one interception on the year. This time last year as a Bear, he had a 86.3 passer rating, 62.5% completion rate, and five interceptions.
Caleb Williams is undoubtedly a smart and athletic football player, however, he is still trying to find success in specific scenarios that worked at USC. This has led to some costly turnovers, especially in the red zone. He doesn’t receive much help from his offensive coordinator Shane Waldron who is notoriously, for lack of better words, bad– especially regarding play calling. Waldron lacks a well-defined run scheme, and his passing concepts resemble something from a Mickey Mouse offense. Although they managed to pull out a win this past week, they did it against one of the worst defenses in the LA Rams.
Across the league, coaches like Matt LaFleur, Dan Quinn and Kevin O’Connell, along with their coordinators, have also excelled at tailoring their offensive schemes to fit their quarterbacks’ strengths. I don’t think anyone could have anticipated what LaFleur, Quinn or O’Connell would accomplish with Malik Willis, Jayden Daniels or Sam Darnold. Like Tomlin, all of these coaches simplified their offense in a way that would compliment their quarterbacks’ assets. In theory, these coaches can be successful anywhere because they adopt their approach to the players on the roster.
Since drafting Mitch Trubisky in 2017, the Bears have had a revolving door of quarterbacks. Unless Caleb Williams evolves his game to suit the needs of Eberflus’s scheme, he will be another top draft pick who underperforms and disappoints the Chicago faithful.
