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Not all offensive problems can be traced back to Caleb Williams

Posted on by Pranco
Not all offensive problems can be traced back to Caleb Williams

The Bears have only themselves to blame for the problems they encountered on offense, especially in the opening quarters.

With 10 points in the first quarter, they rank second to last in the NFL in scoring in that span of games and offensive coordinator Shane Waldron continues to search for answers. The solution is to eliminate the negative plays — sacks or penalties — because they have given quarterback Caleb Williams too much distance to account for third downs in the last two games.

“I think it’s similar to the beginning of the season where the negative plays or the second-and-long, third-and-long situations really crept up on us in the games where we didn’t have as much success,” Waldron said. said. “Especially this past week when we were in multiple second and ten-pluses leading to third and longer ones, these are generally scenarios that you want to stay out of as an offense.

“When we start playing at a higher level, we know we’re going to get more runs because we don’t have as many negative plays. We stay efficient with that balance, the marriage of the run and the pass. and then the completion game mentality kicks in and you’re either on second-and-shorter or you’re on first-and-10, third-and-shorter and able to execute at a higher level.

The Bears have allowed the second-worst sack rate in the league at 3.5 per game. Only Cleveland (4.8) is worse.

In terms of presnap penalties, they are tied with Miami for the league lead in illegal formation violations with six for 30 yards. They have committed fifteen false starts, two fewer than the league leaders. They also committed two illegal plowing fines.

The penalties and the sacks are intertwined, Waldron said. One thing can lead to another. Both put pressure on Williams and the offense to make up lost ground and it gives the defense an edge, leading to more penalties and sacks.

The offensive line should then be where the blame lies?

“I know we’re all seeing sack numbers, and we all just want to put it on the offensive line,” Cole Kmet said. “But there is an element of receivers having to run the right routes. We have to be exactly where we need to be, especially if there is an exciting element to the piece.

“Obviously the O-line has to block it properly. The ridges must be in the right place. Tight ends have to be alert to who is coming and who is not. The quarterback has to be on the ball when it comes to running safeties and all that stuff. So there’s a lot to it than just the offensive line component.”

On the other hand, sometimes it’s up to Williams to wait too long to throw or get into a pocket. He did that in the last game.

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“It’s the ultimate team statistic because on every one of these plays there are times when it’s the quarterback who gets the ball out (slowly),” Waldron said. “There are times when, if it turns red, going ahead and throwing it away is OK.

“And there are other times when a defensive scheme can hit faster than expected and you need to be able to play (throw away) the next one. I think the high number of sacks, generally speaking as an offense, is something that we’ve really started to focus on and obviously we’ve talked about every week, but as they pile up that’s a big goal of ours to reduce that number because that goes back to the second-down execution, the third-down execution, because of all the negative plays, sacks are the ones that impact a drive and expected points more than anything. We are working on all different causes there.”

Penalties make it easier to get sacks and this is a fairly late in the season issue when an offense repeatedly misfires or makes a false start. Waldron admits that.

“I would say with the presnap penalties, these are issues that we have to continue to work on resolving because obviously they’ve lasted a little bit longer than what we were looking for,” Waldron said. “So again, those are the things we’ll discuss, we’ll talk about it, always give the guys the why and then now it’s about going out and executing.”

Twitter: BearsOnSi