Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson is a numbers guy. That goes back to his time at North Carolina, where he sought degrees in mathematics and computer science. It isn’t a surprise, in hindsight, that he became an advocate of advanced metrics as a coach. That made it somewhat odd that his primary focus for quarterback Caleb Williams was one of the old school stats. He wanted a 70% completion percentage. To him, the best QBs in the NFL hover around that line and tend to win a lot of football games.
Oddly simplistic, but hard to argue. Williams certainly didn’t meet the criteria last season, finishing with a disappointing 58.1 completion percentage. However, it’s possible that Johnson might’ve told a white lie. While the more completions are certainly important to him, Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports found out that it might not be the stat he’s actually focused on. It goes back to a strategy adopted by Bill Belichick during the New England Patriots dynasty years. Control the end of the 2nd quarter and the beginning of the 3rd quarter.
Ben Johnson wants Williams to save his best for that window.
It’s a term made popular by Bill Belichick, referring to the final four minutes of the first half combined with the first four minutes of the second half. It’s a magical window of time that can, theoretically, swing a football game.
Bears head coach Ben Johnson has put out the (perhaps fanciful) goal of quarterback Caleb Williams completing 70 percent of his passes. Talking heads will remind you each week that Chicago has never had a quarterback throw for 4,000 yards in a season. But inside the Bears, they’re focused primarily on that middle eight.
“If we can play quality football within structure in those moments, I think he’ll make a huge jump,” a Bears source, not authorized to speak with a reporter, told me recently…
…Last year Williams ranked No. 21 in the league in EPA/dropback within the middle eight — 0.07, just below the league average of 0.10 and well behind the league leader (Drake Maye, at 0.39).
There is evidence to back up this theory.
There were three games in which the Bears achieved their objective of scoring in the middle eight and preventing the opponent from doing so. The first was at home against Dallas, the second was in Minnesota, and the last was the wild card game against Green Bay. All three were wins. Belichick always understood that the middle eight was prime territory to build momentum. You use the final four minutes to get some points going into halftime. That generates a positive buzz as you regroup in the locker room. Then doing so again early in the 3rd tends to knock the wind out of the opponent’s sails.
What’s encouraging is that the Bears were actually pretty good at scoring in that zone. The common issue was that the opponent found ways to do so as well. This was due to a mixture of the offense not controlling the ball enough and the defense not getting off the field. Too many punts on one side and not enough on the other. Ben Johnson believes Williams is far more capable of leading more efficient drives going into his second year. The uncertainty is whether the defense can get stops.
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Things finally make sense.
Yes. The completion percentage remains important. Johnson made that pretty clear when asked. However, this middle-eight metric aligns much more closely with his detailed way of thinking. The NFL is all about situational football. If you can master the most important areas of the clock during a game, you win most of the time. We already know the Bears have the final two minutes in the 4th quarter down to a near science. Next is shifting that success to earlier in the game. The end of the 1st half and the beginning of the 2nd are great places to focus.
Carolina will serve as the first test for this goal on Sunday. They’re another team that often struggled to control that part of the game. Like the Bears, they are aware of this problem. The team that takes advantage first will likely seize control of the game and maybe set the tone for their season. Johnson, emphasizing it throughout training camp, figures to give the Bears a slight advantage.
