After taking a clear league-high 68 sacks as a rookie last season, Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams is thankfully not on the same pace after being sacked six times over the first two games this season. Some of that is his own improvement in terms of pocket presence, but in general the offensive line has looked better.
According to Pro Football Focus, Williams has been pressured on 37.5 percent of his dropbacks so far this season. That's actually a small increase over all of last season (35.3 percent), but let's assume a larger sample size as this season goes on will reveal if there'll be a real difference there or not.
The Bears overhauled the interior of their offensive line during the offseason, while not really displacing the incumbent starting offensive tackles. The left tackle spot was open to competition for a time, but ultimately (and as expected) no change was made going into the season.
Since more than one player can allow a quarterback pressure on a given play, specific data points don't always align perfectly. But as passed long by SleeperBears on X, via a table from Football Insights, there is a clear-cut weak link on the Bears' offensive line when it comes to keeping Williams clean.
Braxton Jones is allowing 41.4% of the pressures allowed by our Oline through week 2🫣 pic.twitter.com/QnWpaRQo5M
— SleeperBears (@SleeperBears) September 19, 2025
Theo Benedet played 11 snaps at left tackle to finish Week 2 against the Detroit Lions, but he did not allow a pressure according to PFF. So that entire 41.4 percent left tackle share of pressures allowed by the Bears' offensive line falls on Braxton Jones. No two other Chicago offensive lineman have combined to allow that percentage of the pressures.
Braxton Jones is clearly working through some post-injury kinks
A serious ankle injury shortened Jones' 2024 season and limited his work heading into the season. As passed along by Kevin Fishbain of The Athletic, according to PFF, nine of the 13 pressures Jones has allowed have come in the second half of the first two games.
Offensive line coach Dan Roushar has noticed the drop-off.
"What we’ve seen is early in games, you see him playing at a pretty high level,” Roushar said. “As the games are going, we’ve seen decline in both the first two games. We have to be mindful of that and manage that better.”
In terms of being mindful of Jones' drop-off in the second half of games better, more help to his side in pass protection and in the run game stand out as potential solutions. Games like the loss to Detroit, where the score opened the door to resting him, are rare.
Read more: Week 2 PFF grade points to clear area of improvement for Caleb Williams
Of course if Jones continues to struggle, and the physical and mental hurdles of his ankle injury are (or should be) gone, replacing him will be on the table. How long the leash will be and what replacing him would look like is unclear, but something will be done at left tackle if Jones can't get right.