The Chicago Bears are entering uncharted territory regarding the NFL draft. Since taking over in 2022, GM Ryan Poles has worked exclusively with top 10 picks in the 1st round, aside from that first year when the Bears had no 1st rounder. You had 10th overall pick Darnell Wright, 1st and 9th overall picks Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze, and 10th overall pick Colston Loveland. With nine wins this season, there is no chance the Bears will be picking that high again. That means Poles and head coach Ben Johnson must face the challenge of finding a difference-maker for their team, despite having no advantage in draft position.

Can they pull it off? Field Yates of ESPN thinks they will. He revealed his first mock draft of the year. The Bears end up picking 23rd overall, indicating they make the playoffs. Their reward for this success? Landing the exact type of player they need.

“23. Chicago Bears (9-4)

Cashius Howell, Edge, Texas A&M

Coordinator Dennis Allen’s defense has exceeded expectations with an NFL-high 27 takeaways despite plenty of injuries. But this team needs a spark on the defensive line opposite 29-year-old Montez Sweat. And at this spot, Howell would be the most explosive pass rusher on the board. He stepped into a much larger role for the Aggies this season and thrived, as his 11.5 sacks are tied for fourth most in the FBS. His ability to torque his body and turn a corner tightly is among the best in the class. The Bears are tied for the worst pass rush rate in the NFL (28.6%), so this match makes sense.”

Howell is no joke.

You can usually tell a player will be a good pro based on two factors: athletic ceiling and college production. Howell has both. He’s an explosive athlete with terrific bend and closing speed. Both are things the Bears desperately lack. He is also productive. Over the past three seasons (38 games), he has 25 sacks and 33 tackles for a loss.

The Chicago Bears will face a big dilemma with Howell.

That is his size. Defensive coordinator Dennis Allen has long shown a preference for defensive ends who meet certain thresholds. They must be at least 6’5″ and 260 lbs, with long arms measuring 34 inches or more. Howell doesn’t meet any of those requirements. He’s listed at 6’4, 248 lbs with 30-inch arms. There was only one instance where Allen accepted drafting a player of that type of build. It was Von Miller in 2011. As good as Howell is, he isn’t the pure specimen Miller was. That makes selling him to the Chicago Bears’ defensive coordinator a challenge.

One thing is certain. Howell would bring a dimension to the defensive front that they don’t have. Speed has been a constant issue for Chicago this year. They’ve been relying almost exclusively on size and power. While that has positive qualities, it often leads to significant pass rush inconsistencies. You desperately need lightning to the thunder for everything to work. Howell would be that missing ingredient. Sometimes you have to look past the measurable and trust what the film tells you. This guy can play.

The Chicago Bears looked lost in the first half of their game against the Green Bay Packers. Caleb Williams had 11 passing yards and the offense managed only three points as they fell behind 14-3. However, things came to life in the second half. Chicago scored 18 points as they tied the game 21-21. Sadly, a defensive breakdown allowed the Packers to retake the lead and a last-minute drive to tie ended with an end zone interception. Still, the comeback was an impressive one, leaving many to wonder what kind of adjustments head coach Ben Johnson made at halftime.

The answer? Zero.

“Not one. I stuck to the game plan, and we ended up doing a better job executing and guys played hard and we made some plays.”

This sends a fascinating message. One that should alarm Packers fans. It basically means that Green Bay’s defense did nothing to force the Bears to change their strategy. Johnson was on top of everything they were doing. The only reason the Packers were having success was that they were winning their individual matchups. Once the Bears started executing properly and winning some of those matchups, Green Bay was no longer able to stop them. Their scheming was completely irrelevant.

Green Bay needs to pray Ben Johnson doesn’t find enough star power.

The biggest reason the Packers were able to hang on was that they had an ace up their sleeve. That was Micah Parsons. His pass rush impact was enough to tilt the game in their favor this time. However, if Ben Johnson finds some star power of his own on offense, which might already be unfolding with Colston Loveland and Luther Burden, there may not be anything Green Bay can do to stop what’s coming. Johnson’s ability to dissect defensive tendencies is what made him a menace in Detroit. That ability has carried over to Chicago.

Any coaching advantage the Packers had on defense for so many years is gone. All they have left is talent. If that gap closes, too, it’s over. Don’t forget Johnson is doing all of this with a roster he mostly inherited. He hasn’t added a true cluster of his own players yet. Matt Lafleur has been molding that roster in Green Bay for years. Their window is now, and they’d better take advantage while they can. It doesn’t seem like Johnson plans to give them a reprieve.

Caleb Williams is passing the eye test for most who understand the game of football. He’s conducting the offense with so much more expertise than he did last season. His field vision is better, he’s making good decisions, and continues to make otherworldly plays when the need arises. The problem is he still hasn’t overcome his accuracy issues. His completion percentage has dropped below 58% after the loss to Green Bay on Sunday. Not all of this is because Williams is airmailing throws, but more than enough aren’t on target, making it an issue.

Some are concerned whether the Bears’ quarterback can overcome this. Accuracy is said to be something that cannot be automatically fixed. You either have it or you don’t. Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune spoke to a longtime league expert about it. He feels Williams has natural accuracy. His problems have primarily come from mechanical issues. His footwork is still too erratic, and it’s impacting his weight distribution. That is why too many passes sail on him. That said, there is one big advantage Williams has that can help fix the problem.

I had an interesting conversation with a longtime league observer the other day, and he made a really interesting point. His opinion was that quarterbacks with the best chance to go from being inaccurate — Williams entered the week last among the 33 qualifiers at 58.1% — to very accurate are better athletes.

His theory is it’s easier for highly skilled, quick-twitch athletes to make mechanical adjustments, starting with their feet, than less athletic, pure pocket passers who have been throwing the ball the same way since the start of their college or even high school careers.

Does the data back this up for Caleb Williams? You might be surprised.

I found that assessment interesting, so I decided to do some research. The following list involves names who were acclaimed as the most athletic quarterbacks of their respective eras. I then examined whether their accuracy improved over time by tracking their completion percentages from the first half of their careers to the second.

Fran Tarkenton

• First half of career – 53.9%
• Second half of career – 59.7%

Randall Cunningham

• First half of career – 55.4%
• Second half of career – 58.6%

Steve Young

• First half of career – 58%
• Second half of career – 66.6%

Steve McNair

• First half of career – 57.6%
• Second half of career – 61.9%

Michael Vick

• First half of career – 53.8%
• Second half of career – 59%

Donovan McNabb

• First half of career – 58.3%
• Second half of career – 59.6%

Russell Wilson

• First half of career – 64.2%
• Second half of career* – 65.2%

The data doesn’t lie. Every quarterback listed saw their accuracy improve as their careers progressed. Some of them went up by five or six percentage points. That is a massive jump. Current examples, such as Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, further these findings. Allen was 62.3% in his first four seasons. He now sits at 65.6%. Jackson went from 64.1% to 65.3%. If Caleb Williams stays committed to learning the position and refining his mechanics in the coming years, he will begin connecting on passes with greater frequency.

Caleb Williams has a clear problem right now. Most will point to his accuracy issues, which are a viable talking point. However, much of that stems from another problem that has not been discussed enough. That is the issue of slow starts. In the first half this season, Williams is completing just 56% of his passes with eight touchdowns and three interceptions. He hasn’t thrown a first quarter touchdown since September and has a passer rating above 76.0 just once in the past six games. Conversely, he’s been excellent in the second half, throwing for more yards per attempt, completing more passes (59%), and posting 11 touchdowns to three interceptions. People struggled to understand why he struggles to get going. Head coach Ben Johnson knows the answer.

It’s him.

The Bears coach is unquestionably one of the best play callers in the NFL. He’s proven it for almost four years now. However, he does have one flaw that hasn’t been addressed. His offense doesn’t feature much in the way of a quick passing game. It doesn’t provide the quarterback with easy completions, which makes it difficult for them to find a rhythm. Johnson admitted after the loss in Green Bay that he hasn’t done the best job addressing this problem.

“Something that I’ve kind of talked about over the last few weeks with Caleb is, man, how can I best serve him to get him in a rhythm early in games to where we can have some strong starts to the first half,” he said. “When you’re asking your first completion to be an 18-yard dagger route, that’s not always the easiest thing, particularly in those elements on the road like that.”

Ben Johnson is starting to see the problem, which feels important.

Three of Williams’ first five passes against Green Bay traveled at least ten yards through the air. Only one was completed. That affected the passing game right out of the gate. The quarterback couldn’t hit his targets for most of the first half. Conversely, his first four passes of the second half were inside ten yards. Three were completed. Williams then hit Cole Kmet on that gorgeous 26-yard dime rolling to his right, which set up their first touchdown of the game. It was a good example of what giving the quarterback some quick completions could do for his confidence.

It is difficult to question Ben Johnson about his offensive philosophies. After all, they’ve led to incredible success over the past few years. However, the important part of this is that he had a veteran quarterback who could handle the workload most of the time. Jared Goff had been in the NFL for six years when Johnson took over in Detroit. He could handle the requirements. Williams had neither the experience nor the knowledge. Nobody is saying Johnson should change his entire system, but sprinkling in some easy throws early sounds like a reasonable compromise.