Caleb Williams’ Well-Meaning But Idea Exposed: The Bears’ O-Line Error Gets a Surprising Explanation
The biggest Bears problem on offense is one GM Ryan Poles didn’t seem to want to admit to, mainly because it’s his supposed area of great expertise and also because he put it all together.
This is, of course, the offensive line.
When your quarterback is sacked 68 times the blame should go to the offensive line no matter what Caleb Williams says to make everyone feel better about themselves. He deserves criticism for poor passing, not for causing his blockers to fail or the offense to tank, in general.
The bottom line is if the line protected Williams better, the sack total wouldn’t be so high.
“Obviously a handful of them sacks are obviously on us,” guard Matt Pryor said. “But I think toward the end of the season we kind of took a little more control over it and kind of settled down. He’s a young quarterback. Obviously he’s gonna adjust. There’s gonna be mistakes. So it’s kinda, I don’t even know how to put it—it’s kind of on both of us.
“You can’t just blame him. From the outside in it’s gonna look like it’s one person’s fault.”
It wasn’t one person’s fault. There’s more than one person on the line.
“O-line wise the frustrating piece of that is that it was hard to really identify–I will say it this way, it wasn’t one reason,” Poles said. “It wasn’t always the offensive line, it wasn’t always the quarterback, it wasn’t always the running back in protection. There are a lot of factors in there to look into.”
Williams’ Issue Factored In
Rookie quarterback problems getting the ball out on time have to be factored in ahead of time. They should be. They are natural.
If they continue into future years, then you have a problem with the passer. When you get a rookie QB like Jayden Daniels, who gets it out faster than almost all veterans, it is extremely rare.
Williams didn’t simply flee the pocket for no good reason. It might have happened occasionally but the pressure always starts with a breakdown somewhere on the offensive line.
He took too long to throw? Then protect him longer. That’s their job. They don’t throw it. They don’t run it. They block it.
Blaming the quarterback for running into sacks by panicking is an easy out for the line. There is some small truth if you cherry pick certain plays, but even scared rookie quarterbacks who haven’t had the experience of facing NFL defenses will not panic and flee if blocking holds up.
The line is the first line of defense for the QB and the Bears didn’t have it.
