Given how abysmally Caleb Williams’ rookie season is going, there ought to be a healthy level of concern about whether the overall No. 1 pick is destined for the same downward spiral as Justin Fields and Mitch Trubisky. Or pretty much any other promising young QB the Bears have gotten their hands on.
Over the last 20 years, the Bears have drafted four “franchise” quarterbacks, only for each one to flame out. (Save it, Rex Grossman apologists. That Super Bowl season was despite him, not because of him.) At some point, it stops being about the failings of the quarterback and starts being about the failures of the people behind him.
And, in this case, that means the entire Bears organization.
This is not a case of Chicago picking the wrong guy, as they did with Trubisky and, to a degree, Grossman. Williams has the talent, the brains, the maturity and the charisma to be the cornerstone of a franchise. As did Fields, for what it’s worth.
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What Williams doesn’t have is the infrastructure necessary for success, and that is squarely on the Bears.
Yes, he has more weapons than Fields was ever given. Among D’Andre Swift, DJ Moore, Keenan Allen and Cole Kmet, Williams has plenty of ways to pick apart opposing defenses. But he’s saddled with a similar second-rate offensive line. Which is either going to get him killed or force him into developing bad habits.
So far, it’s getting Williams killed. He’s been sacked an NFL-high 38 times, including nine times Sunday. Some of that is on the rookie, who acknowledges he can hold the ball too long. But it’s also on the Bears, who can’t seem to understand that a franchise QB is useless if he can’t stay upright or is constantly running for his life.
And just like with Trubisky and Fields, the Bears aren’t doing Williams any favors with who’s coaching him.
All rookie QBs, I don’t care how talented they are, are going to have a learning curve and will need guidance to navigate it. The best way would seem to be with a head coach with an offensive background or, alternatively, a hot-shot offensive coordinator.
The Bears, in their infinite wisdom, provided neither.
They hung on to head coach Matt Eberflus, whose background is on defense and who went 10-24 in his first two seasons. Then they passed over Kliff Kingsbury, who coached Williams at USC and also coached that Patrick Mahomes guy at Texas Tech, for offensive coordinator and hired Shane Waldron instead.
Now Kingsbury is in Washington, where Jayden Daniels is looking like maybe he should have been the No. 1 pick. The Commanders are the surprise of the NFL, and Williams and the Bears are in the middle of a five-alarm dumpster fire.
Unlike the other teams that drafted quarterbacks in the first round, the Bears didn’t even give Williams a veteran QB as a backup and mentor. Those who watched ‘Hard Knocks’ will remember that Chicago GM Ryan Poles cut Brett Rypien at the end of training camp, keeping two other young QBs on the roster.
“He’s where he is right now,” Eberflus said Monday of Williams. “We’re 4-5 and we’ve lost three in a row. Again, it’s about getting us on the right track.”
But any changes Eberflus and the Bears make — no way Waldron survives this week — is only so much shuffling of deck chairs. The problem isn’t Williams or the play calling and, contrary to how Eberflus tries to spin it, there are very few positives to be taken from this 4-5 season.
Three of Chicago’s four wins came against the dregs of the NFL, teams Chicago should beat, and the fourth was at home against a Los Angeles Rams team that was without Cooper Kupp, Puka Nacua and starting offensive linemen Steve Avila and Joe Noteboom.
Chicago has not scored an offensive touchdown in the last two games, and Williams has not thrown a TD pass in the last three. He’s regressing in his accuracy, completing less than 54% of his passes in each of the last three games, and only the Indianapolis Colts have a worse completion rate than Chicago.
This is before the Bears have even played a single game against their NFC North brethren — all of whom are putting on master classes in filling the quarterback position, mind you. Jared Goff has become an MVP contender since the Detroit Lions traded for him almost four years ago, while Minnesota’s Sam Darnold is showing it was more about the New York Jets and Carolina Panthers than him.
As for hated rival Green Bay, all the Packers have done is make seamless transitions from Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers to Jordan Love. And when Love had to miss a couple of games earlier this year, Matt LaFleur had Tennessee Titans reject Malik Willis playing like Josh Allen Lite.
The Bears will be lucky to win one, maybe two more games the rest of the season, after which Eberflus and his staff will be let go and Williams will have to start over with a new head coach, new offensive coordinator and new scheme. This will have been a season wasted, critical time in Williams’ development squandered.
This is not a formula for success in the NFL. Yet the Bears keep going back to it, time and time again, with predictable results.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.
