These were pretty damn good a week ago. Let’s see if we can keep it going.
Caleb Williams is going to throw between 40-50 passes and put together a rarely seen stat line when it comes to the quarterback position for the Chicago Bears, as he nears 400 yards passing.
Tank Bigsby will have success on the ground, gaining decent chunks on first and second downs, allowing the Jacksonville short passing game to move the chains.
Bears will counter the Jacksonville edge rushers early by going to the screen game, with D’Andre Swift breaking a big one.
Cole Kmet: 6 catches, 71 yards, touchdown.
Jaylon Johnson picks off Trevor at a pivotal moment in the fourth quarter, as the quarterback tries to force a pass to his young star, Brian Thomas.
This is a game where the Bears, and Caleb, need to attack the middle of the field with the passing attack. Joe Flacco exploited a ton of space for all four quarters.
Jaguars are good against the run, currently ranked 8th in the league. The Colts had 34 points in Jacksonville last weekend and didn’t surpass 100 yards on the ground.
With the Bears struggling against north-to-south rushing attacks, Tank Bigsby could be a real problem for them. Travis Etienne is a more versatile back, but Bigsby runs an awful lot like Chuba Hubbard and Hubbard averaged 7.5 yards per carry at Soldier Field. Watch the physicality Bigsby runs with on his touchdown in the middle of the third quarter. (Etienne is Trevor Lawrence’s quick outlet option, especially when he releases into a vacant space behind the defensive line.)
Josh Hines-Allen v. Braxton Jones has the potential to be a game-defining battle. Hines-Allen doesn’t leave the right edge position and his burst off the line of scrimmage forced Flacco to release the ball quickly on at least 6-7 important downs. (Trevon Walker is a solid closer on the other side as well.)
Trevor Lawrence was good to wide open deep options Sunday, but mediocre just about everywhere else.
Mo Alie-Cox’s stat line for the Colts – 2/37/1 – may not look impressive. But he could easily have had a pair of additional touchdowns with a more accurate Flacco. Is this Cole Kmet’s breakout game in passing attack?
Projects to 3,709 yards, just a hundred or so below the most in the history of the franchise
Touchdowns: 5
Interceptions: 4
0 in last two games.
Passer Rating: 81.3
Increased 30 points between weeks 2 and 3.
Increased 26 points between weeks 3 and 4.
Increased 20 points between weeks 4 and 5.
And for all those salivating over Jayden Daniels, it is interesting to note that Daniels has one (1) more win, one (1) less touchdown and only 44 more passing yards.
So here is my poll question for the comments section below: what are fair seasonal expectations for Caleb Williams? Give me your answers in HAIKU FORM. Best response gets into this week’s game preview.
Bears did today exactly what they should be expected to do, at home, against an inferior opponent: they dominated. Both on the field AND on the sidelines, they dominated.
This is the D.J. Moore breakout game. 11 catches, 137 yards, 2 touchdowns.
Chicago’s pass rush harasses Andy Dalton and creates a pivotal first half turnover, which feels like a sack/fumble deep in Carolina territory. Bears take a two-score lead early never relinquish that.
T.J. Edwards records double digit tackles.
Jaylon Johnson gets his third interception.
Caleb cruises by the 1,000-yard passing mark sometime late in the third quarter.
Something occurred to me while watching Caleb Williams Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams. He doesn’t look, physically, like a rookie. He has pre-snap command at the line of scrimmage, comfortability in the pocket (when one exists), and makes quick decisions.
And when I watched young Josh Allen and Cam Newton, I used to bemoan their inability to take the underneath stuff well into their second seasons. It was hero shot, run the ball, or bust. It only took Caleb four weeks to grasp that essential element of playing quarterback play in this league. Against the Rams, he put the football in the hands of his playmakers and let them make plays. This is an offense that should be nearly impossible to defend underneath.
What’s his signature flaw currently? Same as those two quarterbacks early in their careers: touch passes. He’s all fastball, but the off-speed stuff will come.
Through four games, Caleb is completing 61.7% of his passes (good), for 787 yards (projects to more than 3,300), 3/4 touchdown to interception (expected but needs improvement), and a passer rating of 72 (but trending in the right direction). It’s quickly becoming a respectable rookie season for the kid, and the next two weeks should be opportunities for him to continuation his upward trend.
Lumet IV: The Pawnbroker and Post-War Memory
The Pawnbroker (1965) is the portrait of Sol Nazerman, a Holocaust survivor operating a pawn shop in post-war New York City. As he confronts the memory of his imprisonment, and the murder of his family, he struggles to connect the human beings alive before him, on the streets and the subways of the city. It is a film about memory, and as such, it is wholly reliant on its director (Lumet) and editor (Ralph Rosenblum) collaborating to establish a technical vocabulary to represent not only memories, but the process of remembering when one prefers not to do so.
If you’re interested in reading an extensive essay on this concept, I recommend “The Representation of Trauma and Memory in The Pawnbroker” by Peter Wilshire for Off-Screen. Wilshire brilliantly connects the film’s technique with deeper studies of memory, trauma, PTSD, etc.
Any syllabus constructed around Lumet must include 12 Angry Men as the philosophical foundation of the career that follows. But as we previously discussed that film still feels an extension of his career in theater and live television. The Pawnbroker is Lumet’s first work of pure cinema, his first profound exploration of his Judaism, and his first New York City masterpiece.
Watch the below clip to see how Lumet visualizes memory.
(1) Can the Bears eliminate their drive-killing penalties? Case in point: Sunday against the Rams. The Bears had several drives derailed, and positive plays wiped off the books, by penalties from players who are meant to be the stars of this offense, namely Darnell Wright and Cole Kmet. You can forgive the backups coming in with limited practice time. You can’t forgive Kmet not understanding snap counts.
(2) Can the Bears stop the run like they used to? The Bears are 11th in yards allowed and 10th in points allowed. Those are sparkling rankings considering how little help they’ve gotten from the other side of the ball. But if this is going to be a top five unit, they will need be better than 17th against the run. (They were first in 2023.)
(3) Can this receiving corps assert itself? DJ Moore, Rome Odunze and Keenan Allen were supposed to be the strength of this roster. They have not been. Even when Caleb Williams has had clean pockets, there’s been nothing available to him down the field. Whether that’s the players, or the scheme, it has to change for this offense to take significant leaps the remainder of the season.
(4) Can the Bears get to the bye at 4-2? Again, early season is about accumulating wins, and the next two opponents are a combined 1-7. The Bears would be fine at 3-3 at their break, but 4-2 would set the stage for what many of expected from the 2024 campaign: a playoff push.
