Bears have Caleb Williams at QB, and some of the same problems protecting him

HOUSTON — The Houston Texans came from everywhere. All angles, all speed, all converging for a town-hall meeting on top of Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams.

When it was over, the Bears’ No. 1 overall draft pick had been sacked seven times, which is more than any quarterback in a game in this young season. According to the league’s Next Gen Stats, Williams was blitzed 20 times in passing situations and pressured 36 times on 37 dropbacks — the latter stat sounded like the Texans were lining up for every snap in their SUVs.

The end result was a predictable 19-13 loss that felt all-too familiar in Chicago: with a quarterback struggling, a defense keeping the final score respectable and a set of problems that might not have a quick fix. All of that … and pain.

“A little bruised up,” Williams said afterward, when asked about the punishment he absorbed in the loss. “You know, I took a couple hits today. I’m gonna get into the ice tub and do all the things I need to do to make sure that my body’s ready for tomorrow, practice on the other days and obviously next game.”

For the Bears, it’s a concerning inflection point early in the season. Maybe not a moment for panic after only two games, but certainly a sign that something may have to fundamentally change in the scheme to try and even out some very real protections issues. They can get away with some of this against a struggling Tennessee Titans team who also trucked the middle of the Bears’ offensive line in a Week 1 win for Chicago. But they’re not going to get away with it against a franchise like the Texans, which is constructed with the kind of architecture the Bears are striving for: A frenetic, nasty defense up front with a stingy secondary; a franchise quarterback who appears destined to be a special kind of difference maker for the next decade and beyond; and a surrounding cast of high-end skill position players who could go toe-to-toe with any other offense in the league.

There are a few fundamental underlying differences for the Texans. They have an offensive line that has been scrubbed into a presentable unit over time, and a running game that saw some key offseason investment with the acquisition of Joe Mixon and Cam Akers alongside Dameon Pierce. That trio is meant to form a respectable running rotation when all three players are eventually healthy.

The intent of the Texans was clear heading into this season. Even after quarterback C.J. Stroud put up a historically well-polished rookie season, the franchise wasn’t going to lean into him turning into a 40+ pass-attempts-per-game player. Instead, offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik was going to scheme to achieve the kind of balance that helped his offensive line keep Stroud protected. That’s why you saw Houston split 36 rushing attempts between running backs and wideouts in Week 1. It’s a formula that was the intention against the Bears, too, before Mixon was knocked out of the game by a hip-drop tackle early in the third quarter.

Even with Mixon’s leg injury, Sunday night should resonate with the Bears. What the Texans have done for Stroud, the Bears need to do for Williams. Starting with the offensive line that already looks overwhelmed to the point of being compared to the units that often left Justin Fields getting flattened in the past few seasons. To the point that Williams was pressured multiple times from every position on his line. From left tackle to right and everything in between. And a couple of times, from the tight end spot.

This produced an offensive flow that never seemed settled or sharp, with Williams sailing multiple throws over the heads of his receivers, or throwing ill-advised passes on the run — some hinting at the out of structure chaos that worried some talent evaluators leading into the 2024 NFL Draft. But if you want Williams to operate in structure, you have to provide the structure he can trust. That’s not what happened against the Texans, and it’s why he’s exiting the second week of the regular season without a touchdown scored thus far, and a pair of passing performances that are nothing less than ugly.

“You look at it, obviously we have seven sacks on the offensive line — everybody is going to talk about those types of things,” Bears head coach Matt Eberflus said. “I believe that protection is everybody. Protection is the tight ends, it’s the runners, it’s the offensive line, it’s the quarterback. It’s everybody involved. … In terms of running the ball, we obviously want to run the ball better than what we did. It was OK, but not good enough. We’ve got to establish the run game. I think that’s always a good friend to a young quarterback when you can do that.”

Unquestionably, there is going to be heat on new coordinator Shane Waldron, whose play-calling has produced 353 yards of offense through two games, with one of the worst running games in the league. That’s contrary to what Waldron was supposed to bring to the table from his two-year stint as offensive coordinator of the Seattle Seahawks — when he helped balance out the scheme between the run and pass. His work in Chicago was expected to be the opposite, taking the Bears further away from a run-heavy offense and striking a balance with Williams’ ability to inject a high-octane passer into the middle of the scheme. The result has been a mess, and it was on full display against the Texans.

While Waldron’s hand in the scheme will get attention, it won’t be enough to deflect from the offensive line, which repeatedly got crushed by the Texans in a multitude of ways. The encapsulation of which came late in the fourth quarter, on a drive that could have seen the Bears pull out a comeback win. Driving with momentum and facing second-and-10 on their own 48-yard line, Bears right tackle Darnell Wright (who also had penalty issues), whiffed horribly on defensive end Danielle Hunter, who obliterated Williams for an 8-yard loss that the quarterback never saw coming. It effectively ended the game, sucking all the momentum from Chicago and leaving the Bears to offer two more wheezing plays that produced a 1-yard run by Williams and a badly missed incompletion thrown a full zipcode away from rookie wideout Rome Odunze.

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These kinds of offensive line problems are rarely fixable inside of a season, unless you can either scheme protection packages that move a quarterback and take pressure off his line, or dial up a running game that allows blockers to impose themselves and find some chemistry. Time will tell if the Bears can do either. But the goal and measure should be clear now. They have some hallmarks of what the Texans have become. Now they know how far behind they are in the build. That was part of the message that Stroud imparted onto Williams when the two met midfield after Williams had been crushed the majority of the night.

“I just told [Williams] that everything that got you here is going to take care of you in the long run,” Stroud said. “Don’t put your head down. Don’t let a hard time humble you. It’s not going to be easy. You got picked at No. 1 for a reason.”

Stroud was talking about Williams’ talent. He easily could have been talking about the previous failures of the last high-hopes quarterback that led to Williams’ selection in the draft. After the Texans hammered Williams on Sunday, those Justin Fields failures and some of the problems that caused them seem closer in the rear view mirror than anyone realized.