If you were one of the 17 people who sat through the entire Thursday Night Football matchup between the Chicago Bears and Seattle Seahawks—which the Seahawks won 6-3—you saw Caleb Williams perform poorly. The Bears have now lost 10 straight after dropping arguably the worst game of the season on TNF, and 49ers Insider David Lombardi thinks this is a seething indictment of NFL draft evaluation.
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While speaking about Williams on his YouTube channel, Lombardi teed off on the 23-year-old and the Bears. In a season when he was supposed to burst onto the scene with a stacked Bears roster, Williams and Chicago have instead fallen flat. Lombardi believes this means we should rethink how much stock we put in NFL draft orders and stop “worshipping” them.
“Caleb Williams—it’s not just Caleb Williams, it’s the Bears play-calling as well—but for a guy who was supposed to be a surefire lock to be good, that was brutal, brutal viewing.”
Williams had arguably his worst performance of his rookie season on Thursday night. Williams completed 57.1 percent of his passes (somehow just his 6th-worst mark this year) for barely over 100 yards passing (122, his 3rd-fewest this year), an interception, and just 4.4 yards per attempt (2nd-lowest this year). To Lombardi—and many others—it seemed Williams was working too hard for limited results.
“The fact that every single positive play has to be a miracle, like has to be a threaded needle, has to be something where Caleb Williams is sprinting and creating just an obscene-looking play. The fact that every single bit of success is so hard for the Chicago Bears, that is the first red flag.”
It’s not just the rookie QB’s fault, as the Bears are now on their third offensive coordinator of the season. They fired Shane Waldron and he was replaced by passing game coordinator Thomas Brown. After Brown became interim head coach, he was replaced by Chris Beatty. None have found their groove as play-callers this year. Chicago managed just 11 first downs all game as a team, tied for their lowest number this season.
“Good quarterback play combined with good play-calling, and I don’t think the Bears have either of those two things, it’s supposed to make things look easy. It can’t be like you’re trying to push the snowmobile up a steep hill.”
Lombardi warned that, while the NFL is doing great business right now if they keep putting out ugly games like that in primetime, the NBA could overtake them.
“The NFL drew like 25 million viewers per game on Christmas Day, the NBA peaked out 7 million per game. But if the NFL keeps on putting games like that Bears-Seahawks game that s*** we just watched out there, their numbers are going to plummet lower than basketball’s.”
Caleb Williams is the type of player that can help the NFL retain its shine. His rookie season may not look great, but putting his stats into perspective, he’s really not been that bad. He is a rookie playing for the Chicago Bears under his third offensive coordinator, after all.
Among 17 rookie QBs all-time that threw 500+ passes, Williams is 6th in completion percentage (61.9), tied for 4th in passer rating (87.4), and his six picks are by far the fewest. His TD and yards numbers may be low, but he’s also been sacked (67) more than any of the other 16.
If Chicago can put a consistent presence behind Caleb at offensive coordinator while building a proper offensive line in front of him, the prodigal son should be fine.
