Rome Odunze’s Week 3 touchdown highlighted Caleb Williams’ growth in one major area and the freedom Ben Johnson is allowing

Watching the play back, you can see Odunze fire his hand up in the air to alert Williams to get him the ball. Looking at the concept DJ Moore was running on the other end of the field, it's clear this play wasn't actually designed and made up on the fly by Odunze and Williams for a touchdown.

A similar situation actually happened but with an opposite result in Week 1 against the Minnesota Vikings during the second-half. Moore was on the left side of the field and ad libbed the route after seeing the hole in the coverage that left him open. But, Williams wasn't expecting that to happen, got confused, and missed the throw that could have been an easy touchdown.

"It wasn’t designed," offensive coordinator Declan Doyle explained. "[Moore's] running an out cut, he felt himself in space and sometimes guys that are football players and they feel that and they’re putting their hand up. Obviously, people look at it and say ‘hey, they’re not on the same page,’ and we weren’t in that case. But that’s something that we looked at and it’s getting corrected. Obviously we’ll be better for that moving forward."

Many took that as a shot toward Moore for playing backyard football and running his own route, but it fact it wasn't a shot toward anyone specifically. In fact, I'm sure this is something wide receivers coach Antwaan Randle-El is teaching to his room. When you have a free opening, throw up the hand to signal to the QB so he can take advantage of it.

"That’s one of those things where we’ve just got to get those two guys on the same page," Doyle added. "Really, the correction is across the board for the whole offense. It’s good for everybody to see that and how we want to handle that in the future."

Sure enough, it happened again and the Bears were ready for it and it turned into a one-play touchdown drive to get an early lead over the Cowboys. Little areas of growth like that can go a long way for this offense and the unit as a whole is slowly piecing it together. I love the freedom Johnson is giving his players to add in a little backyard play to the offense. It gives the unit a whole new wrinkle to exploit defenses and put points on the board.