Mark Sanchez breaks down Caleb Williams’ issue, and the thing he desperately needs to improve

Mark Sanchez joined Colin Cowherd to discuss Caleb Williams’ sophomore season in the NFL

Caleb Williams was a hot prospect coming out of college. He’d drawn comparisons to Mahomes during his time at USC, and the Heisman trophy winner became a lock for a top pick in the 2024 NFL draft.

The Chicago Bears got incredibly lucky with their spot in the draft last year, which allowed them to secure a franchise QB.

They’d traded down with the Carolina Panthers the previous year so that they could select Bryce Young, and one of the picks Chicago got in exchange turned out to be the number one overall selection in 2024.

The Bears used that pick to draft Caleb Williams, who was expected to be the franchise-altering quarterback Chicago has been searching for since the 80s.

His rookie year was a struggle. The game often looked like it was moving too fast for him, and some of the mistakes he made during his college career reared again in the NFL.

Williams took far too many avoidable sacks and lost a lot of yardage while trying to scramble around and make plays like he had in college.

During the offseason, it came to light that the Bears coaching staff had left him to watch film by himself, something that stunted his development as a rookie.

That reality added context to the film of his 2024 season, which often looked as though he’d made very little progress from the early weeks to the later games of the year.

This season, Ben Johnson has vowed to help Caleb develop, citing his talent as one of the main reasons he wanted to take the job in Chicago.

Ex-NFL quarterback Mark Sanchez joined Colin Cowherd on The Herd this week, and explained what he wants to see from the second-year QB this season:

“The big one for me is him understanding when to hang in the pocket and trust it, and win from the pocket with slight movement, and when to completely break and go steal some yards, get down, get out of bounds, get healthy.”

He explained:

“I think his footwork and his eyes are going to be in the right place, right timing, and if it ain’t there, cut bait, move on with your life and go make a play.”

“I think Ben will give him that speech, ‘hey, get me out of a jam maybe two-three times a game, and I’m gonna put you in really good spots.’ But those two to three times are critical plays. We can’t turn the ball over, and we can’t take hits.”

The Bears will open their schedule on Monday night, in a prime-time game against their NFC North rivals, the Minnesota Vikings.

Colin Cowherd believes Williams needs to be more like Patrick Mahomes, with Michael Jordan reference

Colin Cowherd believes that Caleb Williams can improve, but he needs to take a leaf out of Patrick Mahomes’ book.

While discussing the Chicago Bears quarterback, Cowherd referenced the Chiefs’ generational star:

“I’ve argued this. Michael Jordan about twice a game, would take your breath away, but he lived on 18-footers. Mahomes, about three times a game, you’re like ‘what did I watch?!’, but he never misses layups.”

It felt like Caleb Williams was trying to make a hero play too often last season, and Ben Johnson should be able to coach him into executing the game plan, and, if it’s not there, throwing the football away, and living to see another down.