The next frontier in the evolution of Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams is improving his completion percentage. His pass catchers dropping the ball less than they did last season will help, but Williams' own ball placement has needed work too.
What Williams has managed to do very well through two seasons plus one game is avoid turnovers. On 1,159 career pass attempts entering Week 2, he has thrown just 13 interceptions. A 1.1 interception rate maintained for his whole career would be elite level.
Some of that interception avoidance has come from consciously not putting the ball in harm's way. According to Pro Football Focus, Williams had led the league in throwaways in each of the last two seasons, for a total of 82.
Even in Week 1 against the Carolina Panthers, as he put together an elite performance, PFF had three throwaways for Williams.
Critics of Williams might say horribly inaccurate passes just look like throwaways to the analytics outlets, but the eye test says otherwise. Other quarterbacks could take a lesson from the Bears' signal caller about not forcing things, and it typically doesn't take away from what he otherwise does.
If anything, keeping the ball gives him more chances to do things other quarterbacks can't.
Caleb Williams is set to join some very good company very soon
Entering Week 2 against the Minnesota Vikings, Williams has 49 career touchdown passes and the aforementioned 13 career interceptions. If that sounds like a rare combination of a lot of touchdown passes with not very many interceptions, it is.
Per Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk, just two quarterbacks in NFL history have reached 50 career touchdown passes while having 15 or fewer interceptions. To join Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson on that short list, Williams just needs one touchdown pass before he throws three more interceptions.
The odds of that seem pretty good, and it could happen early on Sunday in front of the home crowd at Soldier Field.
Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores is going to make things as difficult as he can for the Bears' offense on Sunday. But Williams has not thrown an interception in four games against the Vikings and Flores' defense, over 145 pass attempts, and the Minnesota secondary generally looked beatable in Week 1.
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It's worth wondering if Ben Johnson, the Bears in general and/or Williams himself are aware of the company he is set to join with 50 career touchdown passes and fewer than 15 interceptions. If he throws a touchdown pass on Sunday, we'll find out based on if it's acknowledged in the stadium, on the tv broadcast, etc.
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