Bear(ing) the News – A Chicago Bears Blog

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune has 10 thoughts after the Bears preseason game against the Browns.  

10b. It was interesting to hear Ben Johnson go into fine details of the screen game, something that has been a major focus for the offense in training camp practices. Salvon Ahmed scored a touchdown on one, but as Johnson noted, there’s so much that goes into a productive or explosive screen.

“We’ve been harping on those details,” he said. “We’ve got specific landmarks. We drill them every single day. I think our defense has done a really good job throughout the week of practice to make those hard for us. So, we’ve had a lot of very difficult looks. Some of our worst plays in practice over the last couple weeks have been our screens.

“I just think it’s a really good job up front, executing the timing, the rhythm, and then we always talk about those screen runners when they get the ball in the hands. We’re trying to get vertical for a few steps and then it turns into a punt return after that. That’s certainly what that one looked like as he was taking it across the field. So, good to see those guys blocking down the field. A guy like (receiver) Kaden Davis, who really is trying to run coverage away from the screen, ends up making a key block, and it’s good to see things like that.”

I addressed Ahmed and his uphill battle to win the third running back position battle in a previous post.

I was glad to read that the Bears have been working on their screen game.  

As I emphasized in a previous post, the Bears won only 2 games within the division last year. And one of those was a miracle, once-in-a-generation comeback against the Packers. A big reason for tha tis the Bears scored an average of 20.5 points per game against division opponents Vs. 28.9 overall against the league. They need to work on the offense to add dimensions to their game to make it harder for teams that know them well to stop them.

The screen play can be a devastating weapon for a team that can execute it well. While the league average for screen plays generally hovers just under 5 yards per play, teams like the Lions, Buccaneers, and Cardinals have all averaged at least 6.5 yards per play and 0.2 Expected Points Added (EPA) per play on screen passes.  I can remember some seasons where the Packers repeatedly absolutely killed opponents with well timed screens.

Furthermore, screens have a high floor compared to traditional dropbacks. Offenses can generally mitigate negative plays while still maintaining a higher explosive play rate than standard designed runs.  It also, obviously  effectively neutralizes the pass rush.

If the Bears can get this play right, it can be a very effective antidote for a lot of things that aggressive defenses like the Vikings try to do.  In addition, as Johnson tries to push the ball downfield, the screen can add a short field counter punch if defenses are leaving an excessive amount of space underneath in response.  It adds an extra dimension to the offense and will be one more thing that teams have to worry about.

Mike Florio on Bears head coach Ben Johnson’s stated goal of being the highest scoring offense of all time.

There’s a certain logic to setting goals higher than the ultimate goal. Still, the only goal that matters most to NFL fans is winning Super Bowls. Scoring doesn’t matter. Winning streaks don’t matter.

The goal is to get to the playoffs and then be the one team that runs the table.

Florio has a point.  But he’s not accounting for the fact that Bears fans have been starved to offensive success for 20 years now.

In 13 of the last 20 seasons, the Bears have ranked 20th or worse in total offensive yards and between 2016 and 2024 the team ranked 20th or worse in scoring offense seven times, bottoming out at 32nd in total yards during the 2024 season.

Even when the Bears have success as a team, it’s almost never because of the offense. During their 2005 playoff run, they managed to win 11 games despite fielding the 29th-ranked offense in total yards and the 26th-ranked scoring unit.

Honestly, Bears games were so misserable to have to watch that I felt the need to apologize to fans of other teams becasue they were forced to watch their offensive incompetance in prime time slots on national television.

It’s been so long since the Bears have had sustained offensive success that they barely remember what a good quarterback looks like.  Before Caleb Williams hit the scene, many Bears fans wouldn’t recognize one is they saw one.

I guess what I’m saying is, yes, team success is the ultimate goal.  But Bears fans are starved for more more and, given the recent history of the franchise, how the team wins is going to count for a lot with them.  

Johnson is playing to the crowd when he sets offensive success as a major priority.  Win or lose, the Bears are finally playing an entertaining brand of football.  Bears fans can appreciate and respond to that perhaps more than fans of any other team in the NFL.

From the Bears practice report at the Chicago Tribune:

The most consistent connection of the day was a familiar sight: [Caleb] Williams to [Colston] Loveland. There are more and more plays in which Loveland catches the ball in stride, and that’s leading to yards after the catch, a primary ingredient in explosive plays.

These practice reports from the various media outlets are generally of limited value because they usually highlight flash plays that can’t tell you how a player is truly doing in camp. We have to see these players on the field ourselves before we can make any real judgments about them.

In contrast, this comment from the Tribune was very valuable. There’s much talk about Caleb Williams having a 70% completion rate as a goal this season. However, I would argue that this is secondary to ball placement on the passes that Williams does complete.

Game after game last year, we watched Williams complete passes in situations where the receiver had to stop or otherwise alter their movement to break stride in order to make the catch. The ability to hit players like Loveland in stride this season will be a key to offensive success and it’s one of the things that we can perhaps monitor as we watch Williams play throughout the preseason.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune answers your questions:

Your idea of a good completion percentage for Caleb Williams — around 63% — seems way more reasonable than Ben Johnson’s goal of 70%. Most NFL quarterbacks never have one season at 70%. Peyton Manning and Tom Brady never hit 70%, nor have fellow MVPs Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen. Prehistoric Dan Marino and John Elway hit 60% only four and three times, respectively, in their 17-year Hall of Fame careers. Why do Johnson and a lot of NFL commentators seem so out of touch? Was it wise to put the pressure of an unreasonable goal in the mind of a second-year quarterback? — Damian W., Missoula, Mont.

I think I referenced 63% as what ought to be an attainable mark for Williams in an appearance on the “Mully & Haugh Show” on WSCR-AM 670. Johnson should keep the bar very high for Williams and all of his players because there’s always room for improvement. There’s no question Williams will need to be more accurate this season in terms of completion percentage and ball-placement — putting the ball in a place where the target has the best opportunity for yards after the catch — if the offense is going to take a big jump.

I can tell you why he wants him to hit 70%.  It’s because Jared Goff completed 72.4% of his passes in 2024, his best season in that regard ever the year before Johnson joined the Bears.

This goal is at least as much about Johnson and it is about Williams.  It’s a personal best for him and he wants to take Williams to the point where he can beat it with his own team.  It’s that simple.

Michael David Smith at profootballtalk.com quotes head coach Ben Johnson on quarterback Caleb Williams.  Williams is apparently doing what it takes to improve his accuracy.  His completion rate was only 58% last year.

“He’s done a great job over the spring and summer, just looking at himself, body position-wise, from an accuracy standpoint, are my feet aligned to where I want to throw the ball?  The ability to see where I should go with the football, to process a little faster, that’s where I’m hopeful that we see another step in terms of the processing speed.”

I think that last part can’t be emphasized enough.

The head and the arm are connected and how accurate a quarterback is will depend a great deal on how confident he is about where he’s throwing the ball.  Mitch Trubisky came into the NFL with an extrememly accurate arm.  But he never showed that with the Bears because he never got comfortable with reading what was in front of him.

As Williams progresses with his processing speed, everything will slow down.  He’ll be more relaxed about getting himself set and he’ll be able to concentrate more on placing the ball where it needs to be to hit a receiver in stride.  Its notable that Johnson emphasized 

Most of us depend upon video analysis to judge how fast a quarterback is processing what he sees.  This analysis is usually done by a member of the media who doesn’t know exactly what the play call was or exactly where the quarterback is being told to place his eyes.  But I would say you can easily loook at how accurate a quarterback like Williams is and that will tell you a lot about how well they’re seeing the game.