Despite Bears' dramatic win over Raiders, Ben Johnson calls offense a 'mess'

Most NFL analysts expected Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears' offense to downshift last week against the Las Vegas Raiders. Head coach Ben Johnson wasn't included in that group.

The same Bears' offense that torched the Dallas Cowboys for 31 points and four touchdown passes a week ealier at times struggled in the dramatic, 25-24 win over the Raiders. But, considering the Cowboys are by far the NFL's worst defense, wasn't that to be expected?

“When you look at it as a whole, it was just … it was a mess,” Johnson told the media on Monday at Halas Hall. “I’m just not proud of what we put on tape."

While Bears fans seems willing to give Williams room to grow - and absorb some regression while the quarterback masters Johnson's complex system - the head coach is obviously less tolerant.

Coming off his career-best game against a Cowboys' secondary that gave up 37 points to the since-bench Russell Wilson and 40 more to the Green Bay Packers last Sunday night, Williams was intercepted once and suffered a sack. He threw for only 202 yards and the Bears were held to 2.7 yards per rushing attempt. Chicago also only scored once on four trips into the Red Zone.

In the end, they overcame their offensive slowdown by creating four defensive takeaways and blocking a potential game-winning field goal by the Raiders.

Johnson's offense averaged 6.8 yards per play against the Cowboys; only 4.2 per play against the Raiders.

I think it was a reflection of myself," said the coach. "I always take it personally. I saw us getting better the first three weeks and in a lot of ways on offense and this was just a little bit of a step back for us.”