The city of Chicago finally could take a breath Sunday when Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford floated a panicked pass straight into the hands of safety Jaquan Brisker.
Brisker’s interception sealed a 24-18 Chicago Bears victory over the Rams to help calm the anxieties that had built around the fan base during a two-game losing streak.
The home win was far from perfect, with the Bears getting off to a slow, mistake-filled start. But behind an improved run game, two takeaways and a special teams show, they gained momentum for the win.
As the Bears look ahead to winnable games against the 1-3 Carolina Panthers and 0-4 Jacksonville Jaguars, Tribune reporters Colleen Kane and Dan Wiederer sort through the state of the team with four true or false questions.
True or false? The sentiments players expressed at Halas Hall last week about issues with player-coach communication were concerning.
Colleen Kane: True. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t productive.
Let’s recap a bit first before we dive in. After yet another ugly offensive showing against the Indianapolis Colts in Week 3, coordinator Shane Waldron noted that he met with leaders of his unit to address how they all can be better moving forward.
Tight end Marcedes Lewis said those conversations included letting Waldron know he can coach everyone — the oldest player to the rookies — harder and hold them accountable. Lewis also noted that the team needs to communicate better and be on the same page when mistakes happen in practice.
“We have dudes — dudes who have done it at a high level,” Lewis said. “Sometimes as the coach coming in, you might be walking on eggshells. I just kind of put that to bed. Nobody’s sensitive in here. We want to win games just as bad as you do. It’s a collaborative effort. This is not Pop Warner.”
When a team is openly talking about such communication issues, it makes you take notice. We just don’t hear honesty about such problems all that often in an NFL locker room. And it certainly brings up questions about the Bears’ leadership.
However, coach Matt Eberflus said last week he thought the conversations were delivered respectfully. Lewis said players appreciated that Waldron took accountability for the play calls he got wrong. It’s certainly better they talked through such issues in Week 4 instead of letting them fester. And there were signs of progress in Waldron’s offense during Sunday’s win.
So yes, it is concerning and worth watching as the season unfolds — but it doesn’t have to spell doom.
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Dan Wiederer: Right before the season began, I bumped my season win total projection for these Bears up from nine to 10 in big part because of my belief that the locker room was in a good place with incredibly stable leadership and collective ownership of where this group wants to go. Week 4 was a significant test of that and — for one week anyway — the Bears passed with flying colors.
In attacking their offensive issues head-on, the Bears found a productive path to troubleshoot things. And at a minimum, they found solutions to jumpstart their stagnant running game, which had its best outing of the season on Sunday. Now, for full context, the Bears still managed only 264 total yards against one of the league’s worst defenses and were hindered by recurring penalty issues. So their problems are by no means solved. But I do think the discussions that went on inside Halas Hall last week were largely solution-oriented and productive.
On Monday, I asked Eberflus how he interpreted his players’ feedback last week and he emphasized that the tone of all the discussions was about “making sure we get it right.”
“It was more (about) accountability really amongst the group,” Eberflus said. “I don’t make it a division between coaches and players. It’s a partnership — meaning that if something’s wrong, a player can say, ‘Hey, let’s do that over again, coach’. That’s OK. We do it all the time.”
I think it’s fair to conclude that the loss to the Colts shook the Bears up a little bit. But it’s possible that was in a good way. Their response Sunday was a step in the right direction that mitigates some of the concerns.
True or false? With another slow start and only 157 passing yards Sunday, Caleb Williams did not show any notable growth.
Wiederer: False. Progress isn’t measured with production alone. And while Williams fell well short of the 200-yard benchmark Sunday for the third time in four games — and did so a week after throwing for 363 yards against the Colts — I think we can all agree he played a steadier game overall and continues to show increasing comfort in his acclimation to the speed and demands of the NFL game.
Start first with his turnover total Sunday: zero. Williams took care of the football and understood the game dynamics with the Bears holding the lead for the final 35 minutes. In some weeks, the path to victory will rely more on playing smart and efficient football rather than igniting the passing pyrotechnics. Sunday was one of those games.
Williams’ best throw was probably his 22-yard completion to Cole Kmet in the fourth quarter, a beautiful ball feathered over the top of linebacker Christian Rozeboom in the middle of the field. But don’t sleep on the quickness and accuracy he showed on a screen pass to D’Andre Swift two possessions earlier. On that play, Rams edge rusher Jared Verse absolutely torched left tackle Braxton Jones off the snap. And had Williams been even .04 seconds later in releasing his pass, that play might have resulted in a fumble. Somehow, though, Williams threaded his throw between two defenders just as he was hit from behind. Swift snatched it, found daylight and turned it into a 27-yard completion.
Those types of plays jumpstart a struggling offense. And Williams did his part throughout Sunday to aid in the Bears victory.
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Kane: And we haven’t even mentioned Williams’ 9-yard touchdown pass to DJ Moore, their first scoring connection of the season, and a much-needed one at that.
Late in the second quarter on third-and-15, Williams and Moore weren’t on the same page on a potential touchdown throw that went far beyond Moore. But they were perfectly in sync in the third quarter, when Williams saw Moore one-on-one against a linebacker and delivered a perfect strike to the back middle of the end zone just before the pocket collapsed. It felt like a trust-building throw for the duo.
But it was about more than those throws.
When Williams and Eberflus were asked where the quarterback was better, they both pointed to him taking checkdowns when the downfield shots weren’t there. Williams said he continues to feel more comfortable overall. And they pointed to Williams not turning the ball over, as you noted. (Guard Matt Pryor did help him out there by recovering a second-quarter strip-sack.)
That’s not the flashiest list of improvements for Williams’ performance, but it led to a win.
“When you have a defense like us, you’ve got a punter and a kicker that we have, you’re not turning the ball over, it goes a long way,” Williams said. “You’re going to win a lot of games.”
True or false? The Bears-Panthers trade in March 2023 already can be looked at as the deal that changed everything.
Kane: True. On the surface at least.
Bears general manager Ryan Poles could have had no idea the deal would shake out as it did when he sent the 2023 No. 1 draft pick to the Panthers, who picked quarterback Bryce Young. At the time, wide receiver DJ Moore was the only player certainty in the return that included the Panthers’ 2023 and 2024 first-round picks and 2023 and 2025 second-round picks.
The Panthers’ 2024 first-round pick turned out to be the top pick that gave the Bears the impetus to move on from Justin Fields and netted them quarterback Caleb Williams. The Bears also ended up getting right tackle Darnell Wright, cornerback Tyrique Stevenson and punter Tory Taylor, with a fourth-round pick from trading back one spot to pick Wright.
It certainly seems like the right choice that Poles didn’t pick Young, whom the Panthers benched in favor of Andy Dalton in Week 3. It might be fair to second guess, given what we know now, the choice to pass on C.J. Stroud, who went No. 2 to the Houston Texans. But the Bears were obviously ecstatic to get Williams and maintain that belief in him despite a slow start over the first month.
It’s too soon to tell whether the trade will ultimately upend the years of quarterback struggles in Chicago and change the Bears’ ongoing inability to climb to the top of the division. But it changed the face of the franchise, no doubt.
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Wiederer: When we talk about changing “everything,” my first reaction is that the biggest things that need to change at Halas Hall are the big-picture results. The Bears still need to collect their first playoff victory since January 2011. And they need to make consecutive trips into the postseason for the first time since 2006, too. Maybe then we can start talking about “everything” changing for an organization whose habit of getting its tires stuck in the mud remains one of its most extraordinary traits.
That said, the 2023 trade with Carolina has a chance to go down in the NFL history books as one of the most lopsided in league history. The Panthers went all-in on a quarterback in Young who they believed could be their sure-thing catalyst of sustained success. And then they mismanaged Young’s first 18 months in the league so badly that he now holds a QB2 role indefinitely less than a month into his second season.
The Bears, meanwhile, have so far capitalized on making the most of the gift basket Carolina sent them for that No. 1 pick, Most significantly, the only real sacrifice they made was deferring their ability to choose the top player in a draft by 12 months — which happened to coincide with Williams’ arrival into the draft pool.
There is still a lot of development needed for players like Williams, Wright and Stevenson to ensure they become no-doubt foundation pieces for the Bears’ next championship team. But you have to like the opportunity that Ryan Poles has here. And don’t forget, they still have that 2025 Round 2 pick from Carolina to keep adding.
True or false? Rookie punter Tory Taylor is every bit the weapon GM Ryan Poles advertised him to be.
Wiederer: True. It sure seemed that way down the stretch Sunday when Taylor helped close the door on the Rams by pinning them inside their own 10-yard line on each of his final two punts. Taylor’s first punt was an into-the-wind missile that gave Rams returner Xavier Smith no shot at a return and ultimately bounced sideways and out of bounds at the 8.
On Taylor’s next kick, he showed off a different club in his bag with a pretty nifty 35-yard punt that dropped inside the 10 and was downed by Bears safety Jonathan Owens at the 8.
I asked cornerback Jaylon Johnson after the game if he and the defense got a little extra juice from Taylor’s magic late in the game.
“Hell yeah!” Johnson said. “I haven’t been that pumped up for a punter in a long time. He’s definitely special. He’s giving us that field position (advantage) to be able to pin our ears back and go hunt.”
The Bears defense has the mentality of being an elite, flamethrowing closer for this team. And on Sunday, Taylor seemed to emerge as the ideal set-up man, meeting his moments with an undeniable display of competitive excellence.
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Kane: It’s always fun when players get fired up about their specialists, and we’ve heard that several times over the last few months as the Bears have been introduced to Taylor.
Many people were a bit shocked that Poles took Taylor in the fourth round out of Iowa, but he said that day Taylor was “one of the best punters I’ve ever seen, just in terms of his placement as well as his leg strength to be able to flip the field.”
Now, we’re seeing it play out — and seeing how it can affect a game. Backed up at the 8 both times, the Rams did nothing after the two punts you mentioned. They went three-and-out following his 66-yarder, and Matthew Stafford threw an interception the play after his 35-yarder.
Taylor told our colleague Brad Biggs after the game that he felt like his performance in Week 3 against the Colts wasn’t good enough, and so he wanted to “be myself” in this one.
That turned out great on Sunday.
