Tape Talk: Caleb Williams, Matt Pryor, Velus Jones Jr., Austin Booker, and More Bears Performances

On Saturday, I gave you my thoughts on my first re-watch of Caleb Williams’ first NFL performance. Last night, I sat down and watched the All-22 from the Bears-Bills game a couple of times, and I’m going to empty my notepad here this morning.

Tape Talk is something I’ll be doing every week this season. Sometimes, it’ll be focused on one player. Sometimes, it’ll be a smattering of notes. So you can expect at least a couple of these a week moving forward.

Today, we’re going to start with Caleb Williams. As I said, I reacted more instantly to Williams’ debut on Saturday evening, but the all-22 film provides me with some different angles, so I have some additional thoughts.

Deeper Thoughts on Caleb Williams’ Debut

Let’s start with his first dropback, the play that was whistled for holding and ended in a Williams throw-away along the sideline. I initially felt that Williams could have gotten the ball to Rome Odunze over the middle. It was a right-to-left read with DJ Moore and Keenan Allen on the top of the screen near the Bears sideline.

Here’s how I believe this progression was supposed to go: DJ Moore runs a go route, and Williams can give him a quick peek and either go or pass on it. Allen is running a quick out to the sideline underneath Moore, trying to pull the safety/nickelback in the slot on him to the sideline, giving Moore one-on-one along the sideline. Allen is the second look on the read.

If nothing on that side pans out, Gerald Everett ran a post route up the seam on the left side, and Odunze ran a shallow crosser. Khalil Herbert was out wide and ran an in-route back toward the hashes. Take a look (and remember, this is what I’m seeing; my opinion is based on my experience doing this and asking various players and coaches questions to support my theories. It’s not a perfect science, but it’s probably pretty close).

First of all, I love the play call. It gives Williams plenty of options with various depths. It’s early, but I like a bunch of what Shane Waldron did this week. So, I initially said that Williams turned down Odunze (he did), and I thought that was a mistake. After watching the end zone angle on this play, I think he could have gone left shoulder to Odunze here. Still, the all-22 showed me that Herbert was the final read on this route, and Williams was trying to get to him but felt the pocket collapsing on his left and felt like he had to abandon it to extend the play.

Could he have gone to Odunze for a short completion? Without a doubt. Is it the end of the world? Hardly. Spilled ♍milk, here🉐.

Let’s revisit the 3rd & 13 completion to DJ Moore for a moment, shall we? In real-time, the throw was as crisp as they come. The ball just flies out of Williams’ hand. It’s so impressive. Even more remarkable is the footwork that leads to velocity and accuracy. The base is so impressive. There’s no wasted motion, no heel clicks; just shifts, sets, and delivers a fastball for a strike.

Caleb Williams' first NFL completion: A 12-yarder to DJ Moore on third-and-12. Bills drop seven into deep Cover-3, creating an umbrella, and Williams reads it from right to left. He also gives the shoulder fake to freeze the coverage on Keenan Allen, leaving Moore possible. — Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar)

Check out t♛his look from the endzone and see Williams move Damar Hamlin onto Keenan Allen over the middle. As soon as he sees Hamlin break for Allen, Williams knows he will have a window to Moore to his left, which, as we know, he nailed.

As you can see in the sideline angle video above, Moore and Odunze are running the same route, and Allen is coming over the middle to pull a safety toward him. If neither safety commits, that’s an easy throw for him. If a safety bites, the primary is to the side the safety falls from. Another great concept by Waldron, executed to perfection by Williams.

The little flip on the screen pass to D’Andre Swift is even more impressive with the end zone angle in hand. Williams admitted after the game that it wasn’t quite a no-look act, and the film shows the designed slip screen for Swift, but it was impressive nonetheless. The sidestep away from the pass rusher while standing tall and keeping his eyes on Swift, the sidearm, cross-boy toss with just the right amount of touch—perfection.

When I refer to the sidestep, it was important; it bought Williams the extra tick he needed to get the throw-off at the angle he did. It seems like something small, but this is the “can’t teach that” stuff that he does. It’s just an impressive level of pocket awareness, particularly as it relates to his experience level.

As for the near interception on the second drive, the all-22 angles make it plausible that Williams saw the cornerback’s blatant penalty and went to Odunze thinking, ‘I’m either getting a completion or a penalty here.’ If that’s the case, it is a hit tip because that was savvy beyond his years. If not, it was a forced pass that resulted in a predetermined decision to go there.

This still is from the connection to Cole Kmet on the naked to the right, but the end zone angle brought the play fake to my attention, and I saw it a bunch: Williams does an excellent job of extending the football to sell the fake. It’s almost in Herbert’s hands before Williams pulls it. On the DJ Moore-designed screen the play prior, there was a jet sweep fake and then a fake to Herbert before he rolled right to Moore in the flat, and he sold the fake so hard he put the edge rusher on the floor when he tried to change direction. It’s a thing of beauty.

All of those small things make the tools work for Williams. That’s enough Williams for this week, but I’ll say it was as good of a performance as we could have asked for.

My Favorite Dude Not Named Caleb Williams from the Buffalo Game

Matt Pryor started at right guard and was impressive as hell. On my second watch last night, I zeroed in on Pryor’s every rep, and I started the exercise to count his wins in pass protection and quickly pivoted to counting his losses because he was winning all of them, and counting losses would have been fewer pen strokes. By the time the first-team offense departed, there were zero losses to count. Pryor won all his pass protection assignments and multiple pass blocks in the same play a few times.

His run blocking wasn’t too shabby, either. Pryor looked as good as anyone on the first-team offensive line on Saturday, and I’m very interested to see what his reps look like at practice this week. With Nate Davis week-to-week, Matt Eberflus can allow Pryor to get more work at right guard and decide his starting center by next week.

Here’s a compilation of Pryor’s afternoon ():

If Matt Pryor is going to play like this every week Nate Davis might not even make the roster*

(*Not really he's too expensive to cut) — Chicago Football Connection (@CFCBears)

This and That

Linebacker Tremaine Edmunds nearly forced an interception on the second drive with pressure on Bills quarterback Josh Allen and was noticeable on the tape.

Cornerback Jaylon Jones looked excellent in coverage. The Bears’ secondary is deep.

Gervon Dexter had a solid afternoon against the Bills. Although he struggles to consistently get leverage, he’s getting better at it.

I liked what I saw from DT Gervon Dexter yesterday — you can tell he's worked on his hand usage, and that led to some quality pass-rush reps.

Looked stout vs the run too, which I loved seeing. It sounds like he's having a big camp too, so keep an eye on him. — Robert Schmitz (@robertkschmitz)

Tory Taylor was as advertised on Saturday. He had two punts against the Bills, both of which should have pinned Buffalo inside the 10-yard line. The first punt was fielded at the 6-yard line, but the coverage team whiffed and allowed a decent return. The second punt went out of bounds at the ten-yard line. The first punt was 59 yards, and the second was 60.

Every punt rookie Tory Taylor had in his pre💖season NF෴L debut.

— ImBearingDown (@ImBearingDown)

Velus Jones Jr. had an error on special teams and a miscommunication out of the backfield early with Tyson Bagent but ran for 34 yards and a touchdown on six carries (5.7 YPC). He showed that he could be a weapon out of the backfield, but he will have to be perfect on special teams moving forward if he wants to make the roster. You can’t be positionless or transitioning between positions and not be a contributor on special teams. The risk-reward doesn’t shake out in his favor that way.

Austin Booker looked tremendous. His excellent performance should provide some momentum toward the idea of him being a rotational pass rush option opposite Montez Sweat in Week 1.

I loved Offensive Coordinator Shane Waldron’s use of outside pitches in the running game. He did an excellent job of putting Williams in a position for early success with a fantastic opening script and some sensible route trees.

What does Tyler Scott provide to this team? I didn’t spend much time focusing on him this week, but he was doing something wrong every time I did notice him.