Breaking down Caleb Williams' growth through six games

On Taylor Doll's latest Making Monsters podcast, she sat down with Tim Jenkins, the Founder and CEO of Jenkns Elite, one of the premeir football training programs in the country, and the creator of the All Things QB YouTube channel. Jenkins has broken down all six games from Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams, and he shared what he's learned about the sensational rookie.

Here's what Jenkins had to say about the Bears first three games.

“I think Caleb’s always made physical throws; I don’t think anyone has ever turned on his film and thought, ‘Oh, he can’t make x, y, z’ or whatever throw; he’s always been able to make the physical throws. I think for me, the thing that’s been funny is I was like super critical of [Chicago offensive coordinator Shane] Waldron Weeks 1 through 3. I think it all wasn’t great, and then that’s gotten better as Caleb’s gotten better, and the thing I wonder… You wonder how much he really trusted Caleb, and I don’t mean that in a super negative way. It’s almost as if they kept training wheels on him, and I almost wonder if the reality for Caleb is we just need to take the training wheels off, and it seems like they’ve done that the last 3 weeks.”

The Week 3 game against the Colts was frustratuing for Jenkins to watch, but it's also where he started to see some real good things from Williams.

“When you watch him throw it 50-something times, you’ve gotta feel good a little bit. I think the Colts game was where I was ready to run Shane out of town. You take this kid number one overall, and you run speed-option? That’s the kind of stuff I’m calling for my 8-year-old son.”

“You saw in Caleb [vs the Colts] how accurate he could be in the quick game, you saw him start to drive the football down the field a little bit, you saw that if there is a game where we’ve got to throw it 40-50 times, he’s the kind of guy that can keep you competitive.”

Jenkins discussed what he's seen out of Wiliams in the quick game when the Bears come out in a five-receiver set.

“You’re more or less kind of eliminating some of these guys pre-snap. Caleb does a great job of going, ‘Okay hey, you know we’ve got this concept against this coverage, I’m gonna eliminate these guys, and I’m gonna start here,’ which is technically on paper football his third progression. He’s putting his eyes there first, and the guy’s open. He’s getting it out of his hand. That’s where I think when you watch the rookies, you can tell if he really is picking up the NFL or is he not. Caleb is.”

“So to me, I think that’s where I’ve been really impressed. The playing within the system like he’s gonna have to do that to have a long NFL career. He’s doing a great job of finding the balance between when do I need to play on time and when is it worth me scrambling.”

Jenkins on the comparison to what other rookie QBs are doing.

“I do think Caleb right now is in another league in terms of how he’s operating the pro offense compared to Bo [Nix], I think he’s doing a really good job with his eyes. His eye discipline is something we don’t talk about enough.”

“We need good young quarterbacks in the league, I think there’s not enough quality quarterback play right now, so I do think Caleb has a shot to be that challenger. We all get excited, but there’s also 15 in Kansas City that at some point you’re going to have to take down and 9 in Cincinnati, and you’ve gotta be ready to beat those guys, and I think Caleb operating a pro system this early in his career is gonna kind of have the best shot.”

He talked a bit about Chicago's varied weapons and how that's going to be a big factor as the year goes on.

“I think Cole’s [Kmet] a really good tight end; I think he’s really good, especially when you think of the context of how explosive this Bears offense is. You’re talking about a match up with DJ Moore, to match up with Rome [Odunze], to match up with Keenan [Allen], now you’re really talking about your fourth best cover guy out there. This is exactly what you want to see. If you can avoid bracket coverage on the guy you actually like to go to because if you really think about it, if you are coming up with a game plan to stop the Bears, it’s tough because who are you going to bracket? Because two weeks ago you bracketed DJ, now what do you do? Do you bracket Keenan, who may be their third-best receiver? So to me, it’s impossible to defend which is what you want.”

Jenkins always brings incredible in-depth quarterback discussion, so make sure you listen to Taylor's latest Making Monsters podcast to hear it all.

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