Yahoo Sports’ Jason Fitz, senior NFL reporter Jori Epstein, and senior NFL writer Frank Schwab discuss how Caleb Williams played under new OC Thomas Brown and if there are positive signs for his development in the future. Hear the full conversation on “Inside Coverage” – and subscribe on , , or
Video Transcript
A lot of people were looking at the Bears last week and trying to see if we would see a different version of Caleb Williams.
And frankly, I, I thought we did, Joey, and you’ve talked to the coaches there, you have a pretty good insight as to why.
I think it’s time to look at it and say, hey, this is a reminder to every fan, coaching matters.
This was a game plan that much more heavily emphasized quick passes.
Caleb Williams had his quickest release time of all season, which is pretty important if you’re trying to limit the pressures, limit.
The sacks, which had been a huge issue again the week before he was sacked 9 times by the Patriots.
Thomas Brown also used different formations and motions.
He says, Hey, I’m in my first week calling plays for this offense, and what I want to do is to create tendencies and then break them.
I want to convince the defense I’m going to do certain things and then from the same presentation do something else.
And I just think that is such a bright way to call plays.
And what I also found super interesting is he kept using this phrase.
Of what are stress downs compared to relief downs.
There are going to be high pressure or highest pressure plays in the NFL for rookie quarterbacks.
There are going to be 3 downs.
There are going to be end of game type plays, 2-minute drive.
I mean, so many of these games are 1 score games coming down to the final minute.
So how can you try and have what coaches are calling relief downs for the quarterback, which is using the play action, having a quick pass, having a handoff, and just making it so they’re not getting.
Hit or pressured on every single play, which will legitimately allow them to think more clearly on the next play.
And I think that that’s really what they did, and I think Caleb looked a lot more comfortable.
And then when he got to the final drive, and he needed to convert, hey, it was 3rd in 19, well, he found Roma Doonsday for 16 yards after taking 2 sacks.
4th and 3, Caleb actually gave Thomas a shout out for the play call there because he said he thinks that the defense would have expected a Run or something close to the sticks.
Instead they threw a fade to Rome 21 yards, and Caleb was really making plays at such a high level.
And I think a lot of that comes from the confidence.
I think it comes from the ways of they they intentionally got playmakers involved super early in the game, all top three receivers and Swift and Caleb’s legs in the first quarter.
And on top of that, Caleb was praising Thomas Brown for how quickly he was getting the play calls in because he’s saying as soon as the Prior play ended, he started hearing Thomas Brown in his headset.
Sounds like maybe that was a little bit different than what he’s hearing before.
And then Thomas would just keep repeating the play in case he missed it the first time because things were loud on the field.
And then that way, by the time it was like 30 seconds, Caleb would get the guys huddled up.
25, they’d break the huddle.
Now they’re all ready to go at 20 seconds and they’re able to use different cadences to try and confuse defensive linemen.
And so I think there was just so much more pre-snap motion formation.
Like use of different skills, all of these things that really allowed the bears to operate at a higher level.