The Chicago Bears have been waiting a long time to finally learn what they have in Caleb Williams. The debut was not as fun as some fans wanted, but it is a starting point to his journey in the NFL. Now, we get to track his progression and see where he goes from here. What are some stats that fans should watch for now that Williams has played a game?
3. Caleb Williams was taking too many sacks despite not holding the ball very long
One of the big knocks against Caleb Williams coming into the NFL is that he holds the football for too long. Sometimes he tries to make too much happen and that will not fly in the NFL. Through one week, that was not the issue as he had time to throw of 2.74. That is about average in the NFL, as he ranked 17th out of the 32 starters last week.
This is a bit different than Justin Fields, who had a 3.32 time to throw in his career, and it was 3.39 during his last year with the Bears. Even with Pittsburgh, it was at 3.28 in his first start.
So, the Bears got a quarterback who apparently will get the ball out a half-second faster on average. The issue is that this did not reduce his sacks. Williams had a poor pressure-to-sack rate of 22.2%. For comparison, Justin Fields had a career pressure-to-sack rate of 23.3%, and last year, it was down to 19.3%. To be fair, he was at 33.3% for the Steelers, so the first week can lead to bad timing and more sacks.
2. Caleb Williams had too many passes batted at the line of scrimmage
One of the big pre-combine debates was how tall Caleb Williams would be. It was notable when he checked in slightly above 6’1”, but even his current height is in the 20th percentile amongst NFL quarterbacks. He is a bit shorter. So, that is why the fact that Williams had three passes batted at the line of scrimmage is worth bringing up.
That would put him on pace for 51 passes swatted down. That will not happen, and it better not because last season, Sam Howell led the NFL with 17 passes batted down. Williams currently leads the NFL with his three.
Justin Fields had 23 passes batted down at the line during his entire career, a 2.7% rate. Caleb Williams has seen 10% of his passes swatted away. Williams has to learn the arm angles, and the timing will improve. Still, this cannot be something that continues week in and week out. If he has a few more passes rejected at the line again next week then this has to be something that concerns fans.
1. Caleb Williams was horribly inaccurate in his debut
The biggest issue with Caleb Williams was how inaccurate he was. When you complete less than half of your passes that is quite obvious. Still, even PFF had him at a 62.5% adjusted accuracy rating, which was third worst in the NFL. Only Bryce Young and Anthony Richardson were less accurate than Williams in week one, per PFF.
Completion rate over expectation has similar results. They add in the difficulty of each pass and calculate how many completions each passer has greater than the expected completion rate for each pass. They have Caleb Williams at -19.7. Bryce Young is the next worst at -15.3, and Daniel Jones is next at -11. Williams had a CPOE that was twice as bad as every other quarterback. Last week, Justin Fields had a CPOE of 4.9, and last year, it was 0.8.
Williams should be able to clean that up, and accuracy was never really a huge concern, so maybe it was a first-game jitters situation. Still, that is a bit alarming at this point. We will be waiting to track his progression next week.