Pockets of followers have instructed that Chicago Bears rookie quarterback Caleb Williams took a league-high 41 sacks over the season’s first 11 weeks largely as a result of Chicago’s offensive line routinely betrayed Williams throughout video games.
For a chunk printed Friday, analyst Aaron Schatz of ESPN debunked the idea and famous Williams should be higher about getting the ball out of his palms faster shifting ahead.
“Regardless of all these sacks,” Schatz defined, “the Bears rank seventeenth in ESPN’s pass block win rate (59.3%) and twenty first in move block losses (114). Based on FTN Data charting, Williams has the second-highest time to strain within the league (2.7 seconds). The difficulty is much less that his offensive line is folding instantly after the snap and extra that he’s making his personal strain by holding onto the ball too lengthy.”
Some analysts famous earlier than the Bears made Williams the primary general choose of this 12 months’s draft that he was usually responsible “of holding the ball and being inconsistent along with his reads” on move performs. The 23-year-old’s play then regressed amid Chicago’s three-game dropping streak this fall earlier than the Bears fired offensive coordinator Shane Waldron and earlier than people throughout the group reportedly had “conversations” about probably sitting the first-year professional “to present him a break.”
As The Athletic’s Kevin Fishbain identified, nonetheless, Williams flashed indicators of enchancment with passing recreation coordinator Thomas Brown serving as Chicago’s offensive play-caller in final Sunday’s 20-19 loss to the rival Inexperienced Bay Packers that dropped the Bears to 4-6 on the season. In complete, Williams completed 23-of-31 passes (74.2%) for 231 yards with no touchdowns, no interceptions and three sacks taken in that defeat. He additionally rushed for 70 yards on 9 carries.
The Athletic’s Adam Jahns is amongst those that consider Brown might “emerge as a possible head-coach candidate if his reference to Williams thrives over the second half of the season” and the crew strikes on from Matt Eberflus in January as many anticipate. For now, Williams will merely look to construct upon his efficiency in opposition to Inexperienced Bay when Chicago hosts the 8-2 Minnesota Vikings this Sunday.
As of Friday afternoon, DraftKings Sportsbook listed Chicago as a 3.5-point underdog for that contest.
