With four games to go in Caleb Williams' rookie season, the team has to start looking for positives to take as signs of growth to build off of for the next season.
One area that Williams has to start cleaning up is how many sacks he is taking.
Yes, some of this is controlled by his offensive line, but Williams has the chance to avoid some as well. Williams has a pressure-to-sack rate of 31.6% this season. That is tied with Spencer Rattler for the worst rate amongst quarterbacks with 100 dropbacks. Only Williams, Rattler, and Will Levis have a rate above 30%.
The Chicago Bears need to see Caleb Williams avoid sacks under pressure
Drake Maye has a worse line in New England, and he is at 21.1%, Jayden Daniels is at 19.5%, and Bo Nix is down at 12.9%.
Last year Justin Fields had a 19.3% pressure-to-sack rate with the Bears, and his career rate is 22.9%. So, even Fields behind some of the worst lines the Bears have seen had a lower rate.
No one is saying Fields is a better quarterback, and Williams can do much more through the air. However, Fields was known for taking too many sacks, and his rates are viewed as high. So now think about how much of a problem this is for Williams.
The pressure can be blamed on the offensive line, but most quarterbacks are able to avoid sacks much better than Williams. Unfortunately, it has been worse in recent weeks. He has been at 35.4% since Thomas Brown was hired, and last week he took a sack on 77.8% of the dropbacks in which he faced pressure.
Williams has shown a lot of highs, but even the best lines will allow pressure. Williams has to find a way to avoid it and limit his sacks.