The Caleb Williams debut for 2025 game! And the Bills countered that by starting 3rd-string QB Mike White and playing all backups!
A Sunday night game with the Bears showcasing their 1st-team for a few series...and Buffalo countering with 2nd/3rd-team offense and defense/no real opposition. The Bears took advantage, which is what you want them to do. But it isn’t as monumental as Bears fans think it is.
This report is Bears heavy, as the score kinda dictates, and the Bills basically not even really showing up...so, here we go.
Player Notes...
-- I thought Caleb Williams (6-10 for 107 yards, 1 TD/0 INT) fine enough/OK enough. I micro-analyzed/scouted every one of his passes, and the trend remains the same...
Facing little/no pressure against a 2nd/3rd-team defense, Caleb can sit back, and fire passes to wide open TEs in the middle of the field...as they beat 2nd/3rd-string linebackers with 5+ yards of opening. He looked fine on those throws...and it’s important that he does or there would be a real problem.
But faced with any pressure, Caleb rushes/panics and tends to throw passes off the mark...as he did here with most of his incompletions.
The media saw the first drive...the TD pass, and they now KNOW Caleb is great and Ben has fixed him.
I don’t think so. We can’t say that yet off this unrealistic backdrop...but that’s never stopped the national NFL media.
When Caleb has time or scrambles for time, he’s breathtakingly gifted.
When Caleb is slightly or more uncomfortable it starts to become a $##!tshow.
Same as last year.
It’s why practice observers one day say, ‘Oh Caleb was so accurate and great this day!’ Then the next they bemoan his inaccuracies and inconsistency in practice.
He’s actually very consistent...he’s great in perfect conditions, but sucks when things get sticky. Against NFL 1st-team defenses in the regular season...it’s a lot stickier.
-- For a compare and contrast, Tyson Bagent (13-22 for 196 yards, 1 TD/0 INT) came in after Caleb played two series...working with lesser O-Line and receivers, but still against the same level of defense Caleb faced -- and Bagent went out and made some really nice plays under duress that Caleb would never make with Bagent maneuvering around pressure and going to 2nd and 3rd reads. Bagent doesn’t usually meltdown when the pocket gets a bit muddy...he just steps up his processing.
But all anyone will see is the Caleb TD pass that was the most basic pass of any preseason in history with the WR weaving through 2nd/3rd-string traffic to get the score...and somehow that play solidified that the cackling heads on ESPN/NFL Network (I guess they are the same branch of the People’s Republic of the NFL now) now KNOW that Caleb is fixed/great now. He might be...but this game wasn’t the canvas to prove it on.
Caleb is gonna get a long runway to work it out...too many egos on the line to pull Caleb early...it makes Ben Johnson look stupid and should get GM Ryan Poles fired...but it won’t. If the Bears get whacked by MIN-DET...their first two games this season, the unrest will start...and if the Bears get out a to like a (1-5) or (2-7) start, and Caleb is being Caleb -- it will be a dethroning led by the fans and local media because the Bears mgt. doesn’t want it to be true and the national media has tied themselves to Caleb because it’s the easy thing to do to stay in line with the NFL.
-- Luther Burden (3-49-0/3) is running 2nd-team still. He worked with Bagent and made some nice catches on off-target/tough catch passes. He made NFL catches. He looks fine. He’ll be a starter soon enough, but he missed so much time in camp with an injury.
-- Caleb’s first three completions were to Loveland-Kmet-Loveland, right in a row...boom-boom-boom.
Colston Loveland (2-26-0/2) started, and was wide open by like 3-5+ yards against backup ILBs, and Caleb had a wide open/fully protected pocket to throw it and Loveland caught the pass.
Cole Kmet (1-29-0/1) caught the second pass, wide open by like 10 yards.
Honestly, I could not tell the difference between the two of them at a glance. I thought Loveland had caught the 2nd pass.
Loveland-Kmet rotated, and that may be what CHI does to start the season...but I think they may just trade Kmet before the season because THEY HAD to draft Loveland way high in the draft and they just HAD TO give Kmet a big contract extension like a year ago. I do not understand the ways and thoughts of NFL GMs, especially Ryan Poles.
-- The Bears trotted out their 1st-team offense, except at RB they started someone called Deion Hankins (3-10-0, 0-0-0/1)...a 220+ pound UDFA RB who lumbered through a couple carries. I’m not 100% sure why no Swift or Monangai...or where Roschon Johnson is, or if he’s still in the NFL.
None of the 3rd+ string backs the Bears ran in this game will make the team, my prediction.
-- The Bills didn’t take this game seriously at all...so the Bears huge win here has to be taken with a grain of salt. To show the level of talent the Bills threw at the Bears...the Bills started Mike White (4-11 for 54 yards, 0 TD/0 INT) at QB.
It is good the Bears dispatched this Bills team easily...it’s not that they won, but that they didn’t struggle with such a paper tiger opponent.
-- IDP notes...
BUF 5th-round rookie SAF Jordan Hancock (8 tackles, 1 TFL) had a nice showing here with this opportunity at extended playing time. He will just be a backup in 2025.
CHI edge Austin Booker (2 tackles, 1 TFL, 1 PD) had 4 sacks in Week 1 of the preseason, he added another one here as he pushes to become an impact defender. Still, he’s listed as a backup/2nd-teamer at this point
