Since the Chicago Bears drafted Caleb Willia🦩ms with the first selection in the 2024 NFL Draft in April, the national media has set the bar for his rookie season, the breakout rookie season that C.J. Stroud had last season in Houston.
Fair or unfair, Williams has had to hear that comparison in just about every national hit he’s done in the past five months. He was even asked about it again this week at Halas Hall, specifically whether or not playing against Stroud gave him any extra motivation. In typical fashion, Williams nailed the answer by making it clear that winning football games for the Chicago Bears is the only motivation he needs.
Williams’ Week 1 stat line wasn’t pretty, but he did enough not to lose the game for his team, and Chicago heads into Sunday night’s meeting with the Texans 1-0. Still, Williams admitted this week that he has to be better in Houston.
Bears Offensive Coordinator Shane Waldron said this week that Williams will be fine, and reps w🐠ill hel🐼p him slow things down.
“I think for Caleb, it’s about reps and the more time he is out there,” . “I know Caleb had mentioned the tempo of his feet. I think just playing with that good clean tempo, and we mentioned clean eyes, clean feet, and sticking to that. That’ll obviously lead to an improved accuracy on a couple throws here and there. But, like we said, we have seen him make all these throws throughout the course of practice, throughout his college career, and have all the confidence in the world that each week that will get incrementally better and we’ll be excited with what we see.”
Williams was sped up at times last Sunday against the Titans, which led to some misses on deep shots, something that will remedy itself as Williams gets settled in (and the offensive line does the same). Regardless, the shaky performance against Tennessee didn’t shake the confidence of the rookie quarterback, who understands that this is the NFL and nothing will come easy or without growing pains.
“I think having a realization, like I said earlier, understanding that it’s not throws that I usually miss throughout all the time that I’ve been playing quarterback,” Williams said. “I think that’s one, and then also understanding it’s the NFL. They’ve got good players on the other side. They’re gonna make plays. Like a few batted balls that we had. Go in the right spot, throwing the right shoulder, trying to throw it over back, all these other things that sometimes a player’s gonna get his arm up, bat it down.
“Having an understanding of those two things is very important to keep growing and progressing and to not lose faith in whether it’s the play, the team, yourself, offense, whatever the case may be, you keep that confidence and understand that we obviously play as well as we wanted to and we came out 24-17 Chicago Bears win.”
Williams is never short on confidence, but to be able to repeat th𒁃ose last three words during his media availability next week, he will have to step up in Houston.
The Texans’ offense boasts one of the league’s best quarterbacks and an impressive trio of receivers to throw the ball to, and let’s not forget about Joe Mixon, a one-man wrecking crew in his Houston debut last week against the Colts.
The Bears’ defense will face a much more difficult challenge this week.
Offensively, Chicago has to establish the run early against Houston. If Shane Waldron can get the running game going and take some of the pressure off of Williams early, he can dial up some deep shots, a spot where the Texans are🌞 extremely vulnerable defensively.
Game Info
Chicago Bears (2024: 1-0) @ Houston Texans (2024: 1-0)
TV: NBC (Mike Tirico, Chris Collinsworth, Melissa Stark)
Streaming: *, Peacock
Radio: ESPN 1000 AM (Jeff Joniak, Tom Thayer, Jason McKie); Westwood One Radio (Ryan Radtke, Mike Golic)
Kickoff Time: 7:20 CT
Site: NRG Stadium; Houston, TX
Referee: Land Clark
Odds: Texans -6.5, O/U 45.5 (via DraftKings)
Bears Projected Starters
Offense
Defense
Specialists
Texans Projected Starters
Offense
Defense
Specialists
Three Bears
Every week, our Chicago Bears writers will give you their Bears player to watch in the matchup ahead. Three Bears is a staple of these previews, and with Bears coverage expanding this season, I thought it would be cool to involve all of the Bears thinkers in the exercise.
Matt Rooney: Teven Jenkins — The Bears left guard had a very rare lousy outing on Sunday against Tennessee. It was a tough matchup against T’Vondre Sweat and Jeffrey Simmons, but Jenkins (along with the rest of the Bear’s interior OL) didn’t pass it. The center and right guard play might be a bit of a roller coaster from week to week, but Jenkins has to be rock solid and consistent. With a more favorable matchup on the interior this week, he’ll need to be at his best and help the Bears get the ground game working to open up the rest of the offense.
Luis Medina: T.J. Edwards — The linebacker is on pace for 255 total tackles, 170 solo tackles, and 34 tackles-for-loss based on his Week 1 production. And while I don’t think that is a sustainable 17-game pace, Edwards is in a position to stuff the stat sheet again when the Bears take the field against a Texans offense that just saw Joe Mixon put up 159 rushing yards and a touchdown. Another strong performance from Edwards could go a long way toward ensuring Mixon doesn’t have a repeat effort on Sunday Night Football.
Patrick Flowers: DJ Moore — Moore has to be a focal point of this week’s game plan. Houston is vulnerable in the secondary, especially on the deep ball. Indianapolis shredded the Texans’ secondary last week, and the Bears have a significantly better receiver group and quarterback. Moore is the best of the bunch, and Waldron should scheme up ﷽a handful of deep shots for Moore on Sunday night in Houston. In 2023, Moore ranked fifth in the NFL in deep targets and seventh in EPA (🅺+83.9).
