Who is to blame for the Chicago Bears Hail Mary loss?

The Chicago Bears offense started flat but finished strong. The defense started strong and fell on their face on the final three plays. A Hail Mary pass that is tipped into the end zone gives Washington the win. Plenty of blame can be passed around, but who is mostly to blame?
Chicago Bears, Tyrique Stevenson
Chicago Bears, Tyrique Stevenson / Todd Rosenberg/GettyImages
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Winning in the NFL is not easy. There is plenty of parity throughout the league. The Chicago Bears have not been consistently successful since the days of Lovie Smith. The franchise continues to struggle on offense. Ryan Poles decided to move on from Justin Fields and this franchise is in desperate need of a true franchise quarterback who succeeds for a decade or more. Fans are now hoping that Caleb Williams is finally the answer at quarterback.

Heading into the Week 8 matchup, the Chicago Bears were coming off their first three-game winning streak with Matt Eberflus as head coach. Washington was 5-2 on the year and it was looking to be a battle of the first and second-overall picks from the 2024 NFL Draft. Jayden Daniels has had a better start to the 2024 season, but that has plenty to do with how Kliff Kingsbury runs the offense. Washington is running a high-tempo offense that allows Daniels to get the ball out quickly -- usually to his first read. While Caleb Williams is developing in a different manner.

After three superb games by Williams, the Bears watched their hopefully soon-to-be star quarterback play abysmal for roughly three quarters before finally starting to make things happen. Unfortunately, it was not enough, as the Bears defense—a defense that only allowed 12 points until the final second of the game—fell short on a Hail Mary pass that was tipped into the end zone for a winning Commanders' touchdown.

Teams will typically review the game but do not point fingers. I, however, am here to do some finger-pointing. Let's take a look at who is to blame for the loss to the Commanders by ranking who should shoulder the most blame.

Which Chicago Bears deserve the most blame in the loss to Washington?

We will start with the people who need to take some of the blame but are lower on the totem poll. Then we will work our way up to the biggest culprit.

Caleb Williams

When you see your quarterback sailing passes and throwing for fewer than 50% completions, you would expect the quarterback to be higher on the blame list. Caleb Williams gets a bit of a pass here though since he is only in his seventh start and he came on strong in the fourth quarter to help set the team up for victory.

Williams has plenty to learn still. However, seeing the way he commands the offense, Bears fans should be excited and not discouraged. Williams is doing things that Jayden Daniels is not and it will help Williams in the end. He goes to the line of scrimmage and does pre-snap reads, motions, etc. to determine if the defense is playing in man or zone. Then he will keep the play or audible to a secondary play. Furthermore, he is constantly going through his progressions and when you watch the film, even when he isn't connecting, he is making the correct reads more often than not.

The problem on Sunday was that he was not calm. He looked uncomfortable and that's not what you want to see from your quarterback. There is more to it that will be addressed shortly, but for now, Williams needs to hit a few of his early passes that sailed too high or were off the mark. His deep ball accuracy is still a concern as it becomes more of a trend than an outlier. Still, I'm not concerned and think Williams will become a top-tier quarterback in the NFL very soon. For now, he does shoulder some of the blame for Sunday's loss to the Commanders.