Plenty of people jumped all over Caleb Williams for the Chicago Bears’ loss in the opener on Monday night. After a great start to the game, he went ice cold for most of the second half, misfiring several passes. He looked frenetic, rushed, and way too amped up. It felt like an uncomfortable reliving of what Williams went through as a rookie last year. The fact he still hadn’t gotten over those poor tendencies felt like a major red flag to people watching. Some compared it to Mitch Trubisky’s demoralizing performance in the 2019 opener against Green Bay, when it became clear he wasn’t the guy.
While Williams deserved criticism for his performance, some people have quickly pointed out that it wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked. Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner argued he played much better than initial reactions would have you believe. Perhaps the most interesting name to pop up is Bruce Arians. The Super Bowl-winning head coach built a reputation as one of the best QB experts in NFL history. He helped develop names like Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, and Andrew Luck.
As he explained on The Pat McAfee Show, he feels that not enough people saw that game in its proper context.
Caleb Williams is not the first young QB to feel that pain.
Brian Flores has made young quarterbacks uncomfortable for years. Bryce Young, Brock Purdy, Jordan Love, Trevor Lawrence, and C.J. Stroud were some of the names who looked rough against his complex, aggressive defense. Add in the fact that Caleb Williams was playing his first game in Ben Johnson’s new offense, which is notorious for being detailed and complicated, and you can understand a little more why the quarterback looked a bit rattled at times. Arians, having worked with young quarterbacks before, recognized the challenge.
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He’s not alone. While Williams does need to figure things out, another Super Bowl-winning coach urged fans to be patient with him.
People forget that Jared Goff, a veteran, didn’t master Johnson’s offense right away. In 2022, people forgot how uneven he was through the first half of the season. Five of the eight games he played in that stretch saw him finish with a passer rating of 80 or lower. It wasn’t until November that you started seeing things click. Williams deserves at least that long before passing judgment.
@Dr. Melhus — Occam’s razor notwithstanding, the folks at Newsweek thought there was a story brewing at Halas Hall last week, when they published a piece, entitled: Report: Bears QB Caleb Williams Facing Difficult Off the Field Condition In addition to some things Tyler Dunne told us about Caleb Williams — such as: • “That early, coaches could sense that he’d struggle with basic huddle calls and forget to motion players,” • “And it wasn’t until later — right around that second-to-last game of the season — that coaches say they learned their quarterback had a learning disability” and •… Read more »
So silly, you are saying you know more about football than the people that have coached and/or played at a very high level?
Gena, how do you know Williams has dyslexia? Are you just assuming or are you taking the rantings of an avowed Packers fan and beat writer that is always making up stuff to sow seeds of discontent amongst Bears fans? If you don’t have facts to back up your claim about Williams, don’t put that crap on here, all it does is to reinforce Dunne’s rant.
Winning coaches and QB Gurus are often wrong, as they are here.
I am a professional observer.
I saw it differently.
There is something wrong with Caleb.
It might not be fixable.
@TGena: How about applying Occam’s razor, and taking the simplest explanation – Tyler Dunne’s article is wrong, and Caleb isn’t dyslexic. (As an aside, what sadist made people who mix up their letters have to write the word ‘dyslexic’. It’s as bad as putting an ‘s; in ‘lisp’) Tyler Dunne is a well known Packers fan who seems to live to rain on any Bears parade. Sowing dissension, doubt, and worry among Bears fans seems to be his only reason to live. I’d need to see much stronger evidence than a hit piece by a Bears hater to believe that… Read more »