Caleb Williams’ situational awareness needs vital improvement

Caleb Williams would struggle at the end of the game also not properly managing the clock and being aware of the situation at hand. Down by 14 with just one minute to go in the contest on Sunday, Williams attempted a quarterback sneak on third and one at Baltimore’s one yard and failed to score, resulting in a running clock paired with Chicago’s offense having to hurry to get another play off.

From third down to the snap of the fourth down play, the Bears’ offense lost over 30 second while still needing to score, recover an onside kick, and score another touchdown to have chance to tie the game.

The issue with all of these crucial situations is that Caleb Williams in not understanding the importance of every second and every yard playing a role in the overall out in the outcome of game. Williams had three different occasions that played a significant role in Chicago’s ability to score, as the offense could have scored 10 points or more in the three situations listed earlier with better awareness.

The awareness is especially important to Johnson as a head coach and offensive play-caller as his number one goal is to score as many points as possible whether be field goals or touchdowns.

Caleb Williams’ rookie campaign had a noticeable negative moments too

The situational awareness issue has been seen before from Williams, as there were a few moments during his rookie season last year that could have been handled differently. The most memorable moment was the Thanksgiving game against the Lions, where then head coach Matt Eberflus and Williams had arguably the worst clock mismanagement ever. Despite having one time out, Chicago’s offense allowed 38 seconds to come off the clock and rushed a Hail Mary throw as time expired, even though they had an extra down and were only down by three to where they could have played for a game-tying field goal to force overtime.

Although Eberflus was fired the next day for the historic clock mismanagement, there was some criticism for Caleb Williams as he failed to show any sense of urgency to get back to the line, and then once at the line of scrimmage enabled over 10 second to come off before snapping the ball. Instead of trying to throw for the endzone as time expired. Williams could have easily completed a 10-yard pass to allow for a timeout to be called and allow for a field goal attempt to be tried. What made this situation even more frustrating for Chicago’s quarterback was that he had executed a similar situation four days prior helping set up a game-tying field goal as time expired against the Minnesota Vikings.

With such a massive situational awareness issue that was seen last year, paired with the amount of last-second game situations Williams was in as a rookie, it is puzzling why there hasn’t been an improvement this year. Caleb Williams is too smart of a quarterback not to understand the importance of when to dive compared to slide and when to try to get out of bounds instead of staying inbounds. When added to the defensive injuries and inability to stop opposing offenses from scoring, it is imperative that Chicago’s quarterback isn’t costing the team points due to mental mistakes.

Sunday’s loss was more due to Caleb Williams’ struggles to have consistency in Chicago’s passing offense and ensuring that the unit is scoring touchdowns instead of field goal. However, there were several little things that Williams struggled with from a situational awareness standpoint that indirectly and directly influenced the team’s ability to score points, especially before the end of half and end of the game. The situational awareness issues need to be accounted for and corrected sooner because it could cost the Bears more games in close situation if not corrected.