Caleb Williams has improved. The evidence is there if you’re willing to pay attention. He’s gotten much better at his pre-snap process and post-snap reads. The ball usually goes where it’s supposed to on time. He has drastically improved his ability to avoid sacks, which was a huge problem. There are still accuracy issues to work through, but he’s proven he can throw with precision when things are clicking. It feels like he has taken the lessons from Ben Johnson to heart and begun to embrace what it means to be a professional.
However, certain issues still need to be addressed. While he isn’t solely responsible for this, the numbers paint a clear enough picture. Williams hasn’t been utilizing his tight ends nearly enough. Cole Kmet and Colston Loveland have been almost invisible through the first two weeks. That isn’t a great look for a team that took a tight end 10th overall. Johnson didn’t single Williams out for this, but it’s evident he had hoped they’d be more involved, as Adam Jahns of CHGO pointed out.
The Bears needed their tight ends to help in Week 1 with the Vikings’ blitzes. But their target load in Detroit was definitely an issue. Tight end Cole Kmet had two catches for 29 yards, but his 22-yarder came from backup Tyson Bagent. Loveland’s only target against the Lions was also from Bagent.
“I kind of knew that first game that the tight end position wasn’t going to be featured as much,” Johnson said. “This game I thought we were going to bounce back more both with Cole and Colston.”
The numbers show that Williams is part of the problem.
He doesn’t seem to target tight ends often enough. It happened last season with Kmet, who only had 55 targets after getting 90 the year before. Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune revealed that Johnson has given the quarterback ample opportunities to take advantage, but Williams hasn’t.
According to SumerSports, the Bears have been in 12 personnel (one running back, two wide receivers, two tight ends) 44.9% of the time, the fourth-highest percentage in the league. So they’ve been leaning into the position in terms of personnel, but it has yet to show up in terms of production and targets in the passing game.
If you go back to last season, when Kmet had 11 games with three or fewer targets, this isn’t a new trend. The shame of it is Kmet was super productive with his opportunities when they came last season. He caught 85.5% of the passes on which he was targeted and had a career-high 8.6 yards per target.
The common denominators are Kmet, who has proved to be a reliable cog in the passing game, and quarterback Caleb Williams.
Caleb Williams has a history of this.
Everything goes back to his time in college. Caleb Williams barely utilized the tight ends in three years between Oklahoma and USC. Lincoln Riley’s offense didn’t seem to have much use for it outside of blocking duties. No tight end ever had more than 32 catches in a season during those three years. It was the wide receiver show. That would explain why Williams does the same in Chicago. He was programmed to think the tight ends play a secondary role in any offense.
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The issue is that he never had players as talented as Kmet and Loveland. These guys can make plays. Williams is doing the Bears a serious disservice by not exploiting them more. It’s like owning a nice sports car but never putting it into fifth gear. That is something he must correct moving forward. Defenses have reasons to fear the Bears because of those two tight ends. Yet they won’t if the quarterback refuses to throw them the ball.
