A homecoming for Caleb Williams and a major test of the Commanders
It’s week 8 of the NFL season and the 5-2 Washington Commanders will be facing a 4-2 Bears team at home in Northwest Stadium in Landover, MD on Sunday at 4:25 pm EDT. The Bears had a rocky start to the season, starting 1-2 with losses to the Texans and Colts, but turned things around and the Bears have won three straight games against the Rams, Panthers, and Jaguars.
On offense, the Bears are in their first year under OC Shane Waldron, former OC of the Seahawks and pass game coordinator of the Rams under Sean McVay. Waldron comes from the McVay/Shanahan tree that likes to feature an outside zone run game and heavy use of play action. Waldron’s offense struggled in the first few weeks of the season and Waldron himself blamed the problems on communication, particularly along the offensive line. Focusing on that communication in practice has turned things around; the offense only mustered 3 touchdowns in their first 3 games of the season, but has achieved 13 touchdowns in their last 3 games.
On defense, the Bears are led by defensive head coach Matt Eberflus as well as DC (and former DL coach) Eric Washington. Eberflus’s defensive scheme in past years has been criticized as a vanilla cover-2 zone defense with infrequent blitzing, but has taken a step forward this year with the hire of Eric Washington in the offseason. Last year’s Bears defense was ranked 17th in defensive DVOA, whereas this year’s unit is ranked 7th. As the Bears frequently drop back 7 in coverage and rush 4, they are schematically built more to stop the pass than the run. Given that the Bears also have a relatively low blitz rate of 21.9% (ranked 22nd in the NFL), they rely heavily on the talent of their DL to win matchups up front. Improvement along their DL is another reason the defense has taken a step forward this year, with a mid-season trade to acquire DE Montez Sweat in 2023 and the emergence of 2nd-year DT Gervon Dexter this year.
I asked Bill Zimmerman of Windy City Gridiron five questions to better understand the state of the Bears and what to look for in this game.
1) What do you think so far about Caleb Williams and why do you think his play has improved so much in the last few weeks compared to the first few?
The growth of Caleb Williams has been truly remarkable. It’s like nothing I’ve seen recently in the NFL and it’s a completely foreign concept to the city of Chicago. What’s largely happened here is seeing the game and understanding the game. The Bears didn’t have a simplified version of their offense like many teams do with rookie quarterbacks. They gave Williams the keys to the offense on September 1st and said, “Figure it out, kid.” Now obviously there was guidance there from the coaches, but he is more active presnap than any QB we’ve seen in Chicago. At times he looks like Peyton Manning. No, I’m not trying to say he’s at the same level, but if you watch Manning presnap, you understand what I mean. Williams is realigning players, calling protections, and audibling into plays.
Michael Conroy/AP
When you give a rookie that much responsibility, he’s going to struggle early on, but the Bears believed in his learning curve, and to this point, they were right. For example, you’ve probably seen the Williams strike to Keenan Allen against Jacksonville. Here are two remarkable things about that play that we’ve never seen in Chicago. First of all, that play was a running play, but the defense gave Williams the look he liked and he had the freedom to audible out of it into the pass he wanted. Two, the throw to Caleb Williams was with ridiculous anticipation and he threw Allen open in between two defenders.
There’s a lot of reason to be excited about Williams in Chicago and it’s not because of the physical gifts that were present on his college tape, it’s that he appears to understand the game at a level that only the truly elite quarterbacks do and it’s because of that, that there’s more hope in Chicago at the QB position than there has been, well, ever.
2) The decision to retain Matt Eberflus at the end of last season was somewhat controversial. What do you think about the decision to retain Eberflus and what do you think of him generally as a head coach?
I thought the Bears should have moved on from Eberflus at the end of the season. The main reason was, while Bears Twitter was having a civil war over Justin Fields vs Caleb Williams, the fact was that the organization had made their decision before the season was even over and they were pivoting at quarterback. The Bears finally had a chance to line up an offensive-minded head coach with their rookie quarterback. When Ryan Poles decided to retain Eberflus, it certainly wasn’t met with much excitement.
But being objective about Eberflus, he’s an excellent defensive coach. It shouldn’t be surprising that basically every defensive back they’ve drafted has hit. He develops secondary players at an elite level. He has had his defense playing at an elite level for about a year now. As he goes from Monday to Saturday, he runs a good ship. He has fun with the players but still holds them accountable. The operation of the coaching staff is well-organized and the game plans usually make sense.
AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh
The question with Eberflus remains if he can be a good sideline CEO on Sundays. He hasn’t had to make many important decisions the last couple of weeks as the team has mostly beaten the pants off their opponents, but in close games, he has questionable clock management, doesn’t make good decisions with challenges, and at times, goes too conservative in the second half. If Eberflus can grow into that aspect of the job, he has the makings of a very good NFL head coach, but if those parts of the job continue to evade him, the Bears won’t have the type of coach they need to elevate this team to a Super Bowl contender in the coming seasons.
3) A year after trading Chicago’s 2nd round pick for Montez Sweat, what do you think of the trade and what has Sweat meant for the team?
Sweat’s impact last season was absurd. The Bears had a non-existent pass rush, and I do mean nonexistent. Sweat came in and started pressuring the quarterback, but was so dominant, he started opening up opportunities for the rest of the defensive line to make plays and get pressure as well. Sweat became the first player in NFL history to lead two teams in sacks and I think that really shows to what type of season he had.
This season, the defensive line is more of a cohesive unit. Sweat only has 2.5 sacks on the season but he’s still leading the team in pressures. I think his presence has opened the door to the rest of the line having a significantly better season than I thought they were capable of. Andrew Billings is a load in the middle and will collapse a pocket if he’s not double-teamed and second-year DT Gervon Dexter is becoming an outstanding pass rusher. He’s tied with Sweat with 18 pressures on the season and has gotten home on sacks four times. Sweat is a big reason this defense is playing at the level it has been all season.
4) Who is one Bears player on offense and one player on defense that Washington fans probably don’t know much about, but should?
Offensively, most Washington fans have probably heard of Cole Kmet, but they probably don’t realize what type of player he’s becoming. For the last couple of seasons, Kmet has been an above-average tight end. He’s been a decent blocker and a useful pass catcher but nothing that would make you think he was a true difference maker. This year, and perhaps part of it is due to better QB play, he’s really coming into his own. He has a 90% catch rate and a 75% success rate to go with it. He leads the team with 15 first down receptions as well. He’s become a reliable target who knows how to move the sticks and can truck a guy and get into the end zone when he needs to. As an added bonus, he’s the team’s backup long snapper and when the Bears long snapper was injured early against Jacksonville in their last game, Kmet came in and the Bears actually converted all of their kicking attempts, which is pretty remarkable.
Defensively, I’m going to amplify what I said in the last answer about Gervon Dexter. I think by now, most fans know a lot about the Bears’ secondary as the national media has brought up how talented they are regularly. But up front, Dexter has been an important piece to this defense. Coming into the season, nobody was sure who was going to be able to be that secondary pass rusher to go with Sweat and the answer has been Dexter. I questioned if Dexter could become a true disruptive 3T after his rookie tape, but he’s really blossomed this year. He can still be exposed in the running game at times, but he’s developed into an excellent interior pass rusher, routinely winning one-on-ones against offensive linemen and is regularly forcing quarterbacks off their spot. He will be a guy to keep an eye on and see if he can disrupt Washington’s offense.
Justin Casterline/Getty Images
5) How should Washington go about gameplanning this matchup on both sides of the ball?
I know I’m going to sound like a homer, but it’s not easy to have a successful game plan against this Bears defense. Their secondary is very sticky, their linebackers are decent in coverage and against the run, and the defensive line has been stronger than I expected. For much of the season, teams have been able to run on the Bears. Opponents are averaging 4.6 yards per carry against the Bears, but they are still managing to make key stops when they need to. The Bears are 5th in the league in yards allowed per game, 4th in points allowed per game, 3rd in takeaways and their defensive DVOA is 7th. I think the best bet is to establish the running game, use quick passes and get the linebackers chasing and see if you can establish a strong short game and force the secondary to come up and try to beat them deep over the top.
For the Bears offense, the bottom line is they still have a rookie quarterback in his seventh career game. The Bears’ offensive line is playing better, but I would try to move around as much as possible on the line. Do a lot of stunts and twists and see if you can get some open rushing lanes. Caleb Williams has been much better against the blitz the last couple of games, but he struggled against the blitz early on. Has the improved blitz success been because he’s better or the competition is worse? I would disguise coverages and not be afraid to send some extra guys after Williams. The Bears offense has gone as Caleb Williams has gone. If Washington can make him uncomfortable and make him look like a rookie, the Bears offense will struggle.
A companion article to this with my answers to Bill’s questions can be found here.
Thanks again to Bill Zimmerman for taking time out of his day to answer our questions about the Bears.