With every opportunity to take a bow, to bask in the adulation that was flowing from the latest viral highlight reel he put together Saturday afternoon at Soldier Field, Caleb Williams instead kept both his feet firmly on the ground and offered measured perspective.
The rookie quarterback steered out of a victory lap after the Chicago Bears’ 27-3 preseason blowout of the Cincinnati Bengals and instead acknowledged that the Bears’ first quarter — three possessions, 16 total yards, zero first downs — was not up to standard, a slow start that shouldn’t be ignored.
Williams lamented a 6-yard sack he took in the second quarter that contributed to the Bears settling for a field goal instead of scoring a touchdown.
“I was in the pocket too long, trying to do too much,” he said.
Williams was bothered by his first-quarter intentional-grounding penalty; by a Teven Jenkins false start that he felt he contributed to with a cadence issue; by a disconnect between him and DJ Moore that led to a third-and-short incompletion.
“The small things,” Williams said, “always add up to big things. … It always adds up. They’re super minute, super small things. But in the game of football, you only have split seconds. And those little things add up.”
That’s the mature approach, obviously. And it’s one of the biggest reasons coaches and teammates seem to be rallying behind Williams with such vigor as his NFL career begins with so much potential. Yet there’s still also room to spotlight the playmaking magic Williams possesses and continues to show, the artistry that can prove intoxicating to the football imagination.
That’s why fellow rookie Rome Odunze lit up inside the locker room after the win as he recounted Williams’ most impressive throw, a 45-yard completion down the left sideline during a scramble drill.
“He’s special,” Odunze said.
Odunze initially was running a corner route on the play. And truth be told, he wishes he had taken his route a little higher. Still, once Williams extended the play with a spin out of the back of the pocket, Odunze reacted and broke deep.
And the ball Williams threw? Good grief. On the run to his left and throwing across his body off one foot, he dropped a dime into Odunze’s hands with cornerback Josh Newton in tight coverage.
“It’s pretty unreal, honestly,” Odunze said. “I just watched it back. I mean, he’s throwing off one leg, putting it on my outside shoulder. It’s like, ‘Whoooo!’ It’s magical what he’s doing back there.”
If NFL “X” had a jaw, it would have needed a bandage for how fast it hit the ground.
Within the avalanche of acclaim for the quarterback, Dolphins star receiver Tyreek Hill posted this at 1:58 p.m.: “Caleb Williams so nice he remind me of ……”
One could only surmise that those six periods were shorthand for Patrick Mahomes, the two-time MVP and three-time Super Bowl champion with whom Hill played for five seasons in Kansas City. Pretty high praise from a pretty credible source.
Williams was told of that compliment after Saturday’s win and, predictably, gave it only a half-smile and shrug.
“It’s respect,” he said. “It’s cool and all. But I’m Caleb Williams. Patrick Mahomes is Patrick Mahomes. And Tyreek Hill is Tyreek Hill. Much love to them. But we’re here to win games for the Chicago Bears.”
Let’s also not forget that Williams has long modeled his game after Aaron Rodgers, whom he referenced Saturday as his “How to” role model for so many of the gorgeous on-the-move throws he makes.
“Over the past 19 or 20 years, you’ve seen him do all these unbelievable things,” Williams said. “(Moving) right, left, running straight. It’s just practicing that. Over time, perfecting it. Obviously there are going to be times where I don’t put it exactly where I want to. But today it worked out.”
Had that big play to Odunze been Williams’ only firework Saturday, it still would have left fans in Chicago marching into the summer evening with their bear-claw gestures fully flexed and playoff talk percolating. But Williams added his first touchdown three plays later. It was another act of improv, a 7-yard scramble after Williams climbed the pocket, darted between two converging Bengals rushers, spun out, retreated and then found his way forward to the end zone.
Jenkins had a unique vantage point, beginning the play in pass protection but finishing it as a lead blocker with no one to block.
“We preach ‘Pass block forever,’ ” Jenkins said. “But I could feel my guy reaching out and I was like, ‘Oh, Caleb must be scrambling.’ So I let my guy go and Caleb ended up being right there. I was like, ‘Oh, (bleep).’ I saw him circle right back toward me. And then that’s when I was like, ‘There ain’t nobody around me.’ ”
Instincts told both players to go on a nice brisk jog across Soldier Field’s south goal line.
“He ended up following me,” Jenkins said. “We ended up scoring.”
Also included in the Williams flash montage Saturday?
A play-action deep shot to Tyler Scott that was tracking toward becoming a chunk completion — until Bengals cornerback Newton pulled Scott backward from behind and incurred a 43-yard pass-interference penalty.
“I was a little irked,” Williams said. “I really wanted that (completion) to be honest.”
Two plays before his touchdown run, Williams also had Odunze in his sights for what looked like it might become a 7-yard touchdown toss on another extended play. Rolling right on a play-action bootleg, Williams had to stutter-step and dart around defensive end Justin Blazek. But with his eyes up, Williams bought enough time to rifle a fastball into an open window in the back of the end zone.
Odunze, though, temporarily lost track of where he was and caught the ball with both feet out of bounds. “Man, that was just a mistake by me,” Odunze said. “I thought I was Tony Toe-Tap back there. I thought I had at least one foot in. If you seen me, I was confident with it too. But that was a mistake. I have to know where I am on the field.”
At day’s end, Williams’ two-quarter stat line was pedestrian at best — 6-of-13 passing for 75 yards, no turnovers. Bur for the second consecutive Saturday, his feel for the position passed the eye test.
More impressive to Matt Eberflus was the rookie’s calming demeanor on what the coach labeled “a nice professional day for a quarterback.”
That compliment, Eberflus noted, was centered around how Williams handled the huddle, how he communicated, how he worked before the snap and how he kept himself and the offense in a positive mindset and in a flow despite the lack of early production.
“His disposition on the sideline when he had a little adversity was excellent,” Eberflus added. “Working with the players, his body language, his demeanor never changed. He was always in there working toward the next (series).”
That, right now, might be as important as anything as the Bears push through the final few days of the preseason and begin zeroing in on Week 1.
Several offensive starters were grateful for being given the chance to play until halftime after the Bears’ slow start. It offered a chance to build some momentum and confidence.
“This showed us what we need to get better at,” Jenkins said. “It also shows that we can be explosive. But we have to start faster. You can’t wait until the fourth or fifth drive in the NFL (to get going). These defenses are too good. Offenses are too good. So we have to come out a lot faster than we did.”
Williams realizes that. Which is why he seemed more focused Saturday afternoon on those first three clunky possessions than he was on the new set of highlights he delivered.
“With the offense, between the guys and myself, we have a standard of excellence and perfection that we know that we’ll obviously never be able to fully accomplish,” he said. “But with that mindset, it only pushes us to be better.”
With his next game action likely coming Sept. 8 in the regular-season opener at home against the Tennessee Titans, Williams vowed to keep his head down with his improvement efforts.
“We weren’t our best today,” he said. “We started out slow. And we can’t do that in the National Football League. So, myself included, we’re going to keep getting better. We’re going to keep growing. We’re going to have a lot of fun doing it and winning these games and playing as one.”
