All of Chicago held its breath after watching Caleb Williams hit the Soldier Field turf in obvious pain on Sunday. They immediately had nightmarish thoughts of a torn Achilles or ACL. He was done for the year, and the season was lost. People went to dark places watching him get carted off. What would the tests uncover? There was at least a small sigh of relief when the Bears declared him out with a hamstring injury. That at least meant he’d avoided shredding his knee or ankle. The question from there was simple: how bad is it?

We finally got an answer the following morning. Tom Pelissero of The Ringer revealed that Williams had avoided a serious injury, even stating that the Bears won’t rule him out for next Sunday’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles.

Unfortunately, the optimism dimmed somewhat when head coach Ben Johnson shared details during his interview on ESPN 1000. The Bears have declared the quarterback “week-to-week” at this stage. Anybody who knows football understands this means there is a strong likelihood Williams will miss at least one game. Johnson confirmed as much when he stated he would “likely miss some time.”

Caleb Williams is at least on stable ground.

He has been here before. In December of 2022, he suffered a nasty hamstring injury in the Pac-12 championship against Utah. Though he managed to finish the game, he likely would’ve missed multiple weeks. Lucky for him, USC’s next game wasn’t until a month later, giving him enough time to recover. That won’t be the case this time. Williams must deal with the idea of missing at least one or two games as he works to get himself right. Hamstrings are notoriously tricky muscles to heal.

The Bears don’t seem overly nervous about the prospect. Losing Caleb Williams sucks, but they feel they have a good enough situation to survive for a couple of weeks without him. Part of this is the strength of their running game with D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai. Another part is the presence of backup quarterback Tyson Bagent. While not the level of talent Williams is, he’s earned a reputation for being smart, accurate, and efficient. That should be enough in this system to remain competitive.

The Bears’ objective is clear.

Keep the train on the tracks. In situations like this, the smart thing to do is not overthink it. Coach Johnson should have a straightforward game plan in mind for Philadelphia. Stick with the run and instruct Bagent to get the ball to his best playmakers. That means heavy targets for Colston Loveland, Rome Odunze, and Luther Burden. He already showed signs of that in the game on Sunday. Six of the 9 passes he threw after coming in for Williams were to those three guys. The only exception was D’Andre Swift.

One thing we can expect with Bagent is that he’ll run the plays as designed. He will be a true extension of Johnson out there. We’ve seen how effective that can be, as you saw with Jared Goff in Detroit. The Eagles’ defense is a rough first test, but the Bears have no choice. This is why they stuck with Bagent over bringing in someone with more experience. They believe he is prepared for this challenge.

The Chicago Bears community felt shell-shocked on Sunday. On the cusp of what looked like a potential comeback to beat Minnesota, quarterback Caleb Williams hit the turf without being touched. Everybody feared the worst. Williams tore his Achilles or ACL. He was done for the season. It didn’t help that he was carted to the locker room in tears. That was it. The season is over.

Mercifully, it wasn’t nearly as bad as feared. The Bears eventually declared Williams out for the game with what was determined to be a hamstring injury. Medical experts who reviewed the footage believed it was likely a strain, meaning he could miss 1 to 2 months, depending on its severity. Far preferable to the originally feared outcome.

However, Williams wasn’t focused on that. After the game ended in a 9-3 loss, he gathered the team in the locker room and gave them a speech with a simple, straightforward message.

Caleb Williams’ evolution as a leader is truly something.

Plenty of quarterbacks would’ve chosen to stay out of the mix, focusing on what they must do to start recovering. The head coach or one of the other captains could’ve conveyed the necessary message. Not Williams. Injury or not, he had a responsibility to make sure the necessary words were said. Yes, the loss hurt. It derailed much of the momentum they’d built in week one against Carolina. However, it is still just one game. It isn’t like the Bears were thoroughly crushed. They lost by 6 points.

Caleb Williams also noted that for all the love Minnesota got for the victory, the evidence shows that Chicago lost the game more than they won it. So many brutal mistakes that cost them points. Six penalties inside Vikings territory. A fumble at the goal line. A dropped pass at the 5-yard line. Having a chip-shot field goal blocked. A litany of missed opportunities. Williams made sure everybody understood that you won’t win many games with sloppy efforts like that. It falls on everybody, himself included, to clean up the mess.

Flush this game and get ready for Philadelphia next weekend.

Williams understands the big picture.

The season is not over, far from it. Remember, the Bears went 0-2 to start last season. Both losses were to division rivals. Everybody declared the season dead. Chicago won the NFC North anyway. They’re already ahead of the game at 1-1. Each of their next two games will be at home. This is not the time to panic. The team is way too talented to let something like that happen. It was a bad day. Those happens. Think about it for 24 hours, review the game to identify what went wrong, and use this week of practice to make corrections.

Meanwhile, Williams will focus on recovering that hamstring as quickly as possible. Given the layout of the schedule, you’re probably looking at the game in Green Bay against the Packers in three weeks as the one to circle for his potential return. If Tyson Bagent can go 1-1 over the next two weeks against the Eagles and Jets, Williams can return to get his team back on track.

The biggest fear going into this season came to pass far sooner than anybody expected. Everybody knew the last thing the Chicago Bears could afford was Caleb Williams getting hurt. Sure enough, he was carted to the locker room late in the 9-3 loss to the Minnesota Vikings. It was later diagnosed as a hamstring injury, though the severity remains uncertain. Presuming it is the typical case, Williams is looking at missing up to a month of action. That would mean Tyson Bagent, the team’s fourth-year backup, will get the starting nod moving forward.

That is utterly terrifying for many. Any time you move from the starter to the backup, it feels like a death sentence. It goes back to the old Tom Moore saying about Peyton Manning getting all the reps in practice. If he goes down, the team is “f**ked.” They don’t practice “f**ked.” Still, history has its fair share of stories of unheralded backups rising to the occasion. Jeff Hostetler won a Super Bowl in New York. Nick Foles did the same thing in Philadelphia. Josh McCown was terrific for the Bears in 2013.

If you listen to Bears players in the locker room after the game when asked about the prospect of Bagent starting, they don’t seem at all perturbed by it.

There is an element of Tyson Bagent starting that shouldn’t be ignored.

Anybody who has watched him over the past two preseasons knows that he is much more the traditional quarterback. He operates almost exclusively from the pocket. He’ll take the snap, go through his reads, and unload the ball as quickly as possible. He only runs when given no other choice. Bagent is not like Williams, who is free to use his outstanding mobility as a weapon. Some may think this takes away from the offense. In some ways, that is true, but it also may bring back something else.

It may bring back Ben Johnson’s original offense.

Before coming to Chicago, the head coach ran a system that was steeped in old-school thinking: run the football, play under center, lots of play action, and timing-based passing routes. Jared Goff, who is very much a pocket-first guy, thrived in that system. If you’ve watched Tyson Bagent throughout the past two preseasons, you’d see that he functions very well in it, too. Yes, it is acknowledged that he’s playing against backup defenders. However, you can’t discount the fact that he’s also not operating the full Bears scheme, only a shell of it.

Last but not least, Bagent has actual starting experience.

People tend to forget this, but he started 4 games in 2023 as a rookie for the Bears when Justin Fields got hurt. It wasn’t always pretty, but he did complete 65% of his passes, threw two touchdowns, ran for another, and overcame 5 interceptions to go 2-2. It kept the team afloat long enough for Fields to return. If he could do that as a rookie under Luke Getsy, is it so crazy to think he can at least do the same with Johnson? This is a far better system with far better weapons than three years ago. He is also far more experienced.

It’s not like he stunk up the joint when he did come in on Sunday. With the game on the line and just over a minute left, he hit passes of 6, 18, 21, and 8 yards to give them a shot at winning a touchdown. Sadly, he couldn’t get that last completion to close the deal.

Bagent is not Williams. That doesn’t matter. The Bears know that. They don’t expect him to be Williams. Johnson knows exactly what type of quarterback he is and the type of offense he can function in. It’s one the head coach knows well. If Williams is out for a while, the Bears can still be competitive with Bagent at the helm.

Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson is good at what he does. He’s whipped this team into shape over the past year. However, like any human being, he has his faults. One of them is that, when it comes to coaching, there is an occasional tendency to spread the ball around too much, instead of getting it in the hands of his best players. That came back to bite him in a bad way on Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings. Trailing 6-3 in the 4th quarter, the Bears were driving towards a potential score. Caleb Williams then fired a pass to rookie tight end Sam Roush over the middle.

Had he held onto the ball, it was almost a guarantee he would reach the end zone. Instead, Roush dropped the ball as the Vikings made contact. It was a brutal missed opportunity, especially since the ensuing field-goal attempt a few plays later was blocked because Roush missed his man. That was pretty much the decisive moment of the game. What makes it even worse is that Roush was targeted at all. Where were Colston Loveland and Cole Kmet? They’ve been the ones making the big plays for you since last year. How does Roush get 3 targets in this game, and those two only get 4 combined?

Ben Johnson outsmarted himself with this one.

It’s been obvious for months that the head coach was the biggest proponent of drafting Roush in the 3rd round this past April. He loved the kid’s blocking and upside as a reliable pass-catcher. Nothing wrong with that. Yet choosing to feature him in such a tight game against a well-coached defense this early in the season felt unnecessarily reckless. Several opportunities were squandered because of that decision. While there is nothing wrong with giving Johnson credit for his successes, he’s earned some serious criticism this time.

Now, with Williams likely out for multiple games with a hamstring problem, Ben Johnson must find a way to keep the training on track. He won’t have the incredible playmaking at quarterback. This will be the Tyson Bagent show. In situations like this, the smart thing to do is have the backup focus on getting the ball to the playmakers. That means Loveland, Kmet, Rome Odunze, Luther Burden, and D’Andre Swift. Roush may develop into something more with enough time, but it’s pretty clear he is not nearly reliable enough in big spots.

This feels like familiar territory for the Bears.

Going into week 3 last season, things looked bleak. They’d just gotten stomped 52-21 in Detroit. The defense was a mess, and the offense couldn’t find any consistency. Last year, they righted themselves with a big win over the Dallas Cowboys. Unfortunately, the test this time is much steeper. They won’t have Williams, and the Philadelphia Eagles are a better team than that Cowboys one was. Their defense has played very well to start the season, and quarterback Jalen Hurts is in an early groove.

This won’t be like last season when the Bears caught them by surprise with that 24-15 win in Philadelphia. That team will be out for revenge. Johnson is smart enough to know that and must have his guys ready. He must also stop with the constant personnel tinkering and stick to what this offense does best. Run the ball and feed the good tight ends. Don’t give Roush playing time until he’s properly earned it. After what we saw on Sunday, that may take a while.

The Chicago Bears‘ season started with such promise. Unfortunately, as can so often happen with this team, the football gods delivered a gut punch. On a rainy, wind-swept Soldier Field on Sunday, the Bears were locked in a defensive battle with the rival Minnesota Vikings. Trailing 6-3 with under 8 minutes left, quarterback Caleb Williams drove the team deep into Vikings territory. It looked like they had a shot to take the lead. Then the Bears quarterback hit the turf, writhing in pain. The fact that he wasn’t touched on the play immediately set off alarm bells.

Sure enough, Williams was helped to the sideline and, after a short stint in the blue medical tent, was carted to the locker room. Based on how the play unfolded and his reaction, many people immediately feared the worst. It’s possible that Williams tore his Achilles. If that is the case, his season is over before it barely began. Remember, the Bears weren’t viewed as a team capable of surviving a loss of this magnitude. Williams is a vital component of their success. His going down was an apocalyptic outcome.

There is a small sliver of hope for Caleb Williams.

David Chao was a doctor in the NFL for several years. He’s developed a reputation as a medical expert who makes accurate diagnoses based on video evidence. From what he saw of the play, his initial reaction was that Williams suffered a hamstring injury. Further tests will be needed. If that is indeed the outcome, the quarterback is likely looking at a short-term stint on Injured Reserve. That would mean missing a month of action. That would be the far preferred outcome. No doubt news will be forthcoming after the game.

Update: Initial announcement is a hamstring.

Shortly after this was published, multiple insiders reported that Caleb Williams was out with a hamstring injury. That is as good an outcome as you can ask for, given the state of things. Next comes determining the severity. If it’s a strain, Williams is likely looking at a month out to recover. If it’s a complete tear? He’s staring down a minimal three-month absence. Either way, the path ahead seems pretty clear. Tyson Bagent will step into the starting role for at least the next few games.

The Bears have expressed complete confidence in their young backup for years. He was excellent in the preseason again and does have some starting experience. He started 4 games in 2023 in place of the injured Justin Fields and went 2-2. He’s playing in a much more talented and well-coached offense this time around. Will that be enough? It will have to be. Otherwise, the Bears are staring down a significant regression after last year went so well.

This will be by far the biggest test of Ben Johnson’s coaching career. He’s always had a healthy quarterback during his tenures, even dating back to his time in Detroit. He’s never had to go on an extended stint with a backup. Can he make the necessary adjustments? We’ll soon find out with the schedule not getting any easier.

The Chicago Bears‘ hiring Ben Johnson as head coach was always going to lead to serious changes. There was no predicting what they’d be. It was a safe assumption that he would overhaul everything on offense. Beyond that? It was pure guesswork. It didn’t take long to recognize that Johnson was bringing something new to the organization. That was an almost uncomfortable aggressive streak on 4th down. Johnson was clearly a big believer in the new wave of thinking that it is actually more profitable to take your chance and go for it rather than punting.

It was well-known that he was a math major in college. Johnson is a numbers guy. Analytics would always be something he’d embrace. His belief in the 4th-down mentality actually started a decade ago, when he was with the Miami Dolphins. Unfortunately, head coach Joe Philbin was fired before the team could implement a more aggressive strategy. Then Johnson watched another team pick up the mantle and run with it. That team was the 2017 Philadelphia Eagles, who rode that approach all the way to the franchise’s first Super Bowl.

Ben Johnson saw proof of concept in action.

That Eagles team went for it on 4th down 26 times in 2017, second most in the NFL. They converted 17 of them, which was the most of any team in the league. People had never really seen anything like it before. Going so many times is one thing, but converting so many as well. There is no doubt that the approach helped Philadelphia win several key games, handing them homefield advantage in the playoffs. Then in the Super Bowl, they went for it twice. The first was the now-iconic Philly Special, which scored a TD that put them up 10 going into the second half. The other was a first down conversion to Zach Ertz with 5:39 left in the 4th quarter, keeping the eventual go-ahead touchdown drive alive.

If that weren’t enough, the Eagles proved it works a second time in 2024, then they topped both numbers with 19 conversions on 32 attempts. The data shows that 7 of the past 9 Super Bowl champions had at least 10 4th-down conversions during their seasons.

Johnson always saw it work in Detroit.

During his run as the Lions’ offensive coordinator, the team went for it on 4th down 110 times. They ranked 3rd, 2nd, and 4th in attempts, respectively. They converted 83 of them. Good for 2nd, 2nd, and 3rd in the rankings. Detroit made the playoffs all three years and reached the NFC Championship Game in 2023. Ben Johnson knows this strategy works. He’s seen it. The trick is having the guts to go for it and having an array of good play calls to create as many conversions as possible.

Johnson certainly has the former. He and his staff have been working on the latter. The Bears aren’t quite there yet with execution on 4th down. They were 15th in conversion rate last season. That isn’t bad, but it needs to be better if they want to win tight games against good teams. Improving that number is at the top of Johnson’s list of priorities. It will be interesting to see what develops.

Weather has been a major factor for the Chicago Bears to start the season. Their opener in Carolina against the Panthers was blisteringly hot at over 90 degrees. By contrast, their division rival, the Minnesota Vikings, enjoyed perfect conditions inside their dome. That is about to change. According to the latest reports, Soldier Field will be slammed by extensive rain all afternoon. Such a reality changes plans for how teams will approach the game. Players must have the right cleats to handle, and they must be careful about what plays they call because a slick football can make execution much tougher.

History says that rain games don’t often favor a pass-heavy approach. Asking quarterbacks to throw a wet football 30-35 times is dicey on its own. You also have wide receivers and tight ends struggling to run their routes with any degree of crispness. It can be done, but the difficulty is significantly greater. That is why the evidence supports a run-heavy attack as the most successful under such conditions, which is why the Bears might’ve gotten a big assist from Mother Nature.

The Chicago Bears saw the pitfalls of this relatively recently.

They played a game in heavy rain at Soldier Field late in 2024. It was in primetime against the Seattle Seahawks. The game was a complete mess on both sides. Chicago had just 66 yards on 18 carries in the game. This excludes scrambles by Caleb Williams. By contrast, Seattle put up 103 yards on 22 carries. Unable to run the ball, Williams was forced to throw and was sacked 7 times. Geno Smith managed to avoid turnovers and did just enough to give the Seahawks a 6-3 victory.

If any team has an advantage going into this type of game, it’s the Chicago Bears. Head coach Ben Johnson has built an identity on running the football. They piled up 291 yards last week in Carolina. A forecast of rain won’t change their game plan much at all. Johnson was going to run it regardless. The addition of rain merely makes it tougher for the Vikings’ defenders to cover the necessary ground, maintain gap integrity, and prevent big plays. Johnson already has proof of concept.

His Detroit Lions offense beat the Packers in Green Bay in 2024 with a run-heavy focus. His running backs had 118 yards on 28 carries.

Can Minnesota match them?

Running the football has never been a heavy focus for the Vikings under head coach Kevin O’Connell. They were 23rd last season, 19th in 2024, and 29th in 2023. They managed 107 yards on 34 carries last week against the Packers. So they were at least committed to it. One has to imagine they understand the same reality about the weather. Asking your backup quarterback to sling the football around in those conditions is dangerous. They must try to make it easier for him with steady runs and quick passes.

The problem is the Bears, at least on paper, are significantly better at it. Their running game was 3rd in the NFL last season. Johnson’s scheme is devilishly good at creating lanes for the backs. Then you add Williams’ scrambling prowess on top of it? This could get rough for Minnesota’s defense. Their best hope is that Brian Flores’ aggressive style knocks Chicago out of sync, leading to mistakes. If that fails, it will be a long afternoon.