National Football League

Caleb Williams film room: The plays that could have been in No. 1 pick's NFL debut

Published Sep. 10, 2024 12:08 p.m. ET

It wasn't the stellar debut Chicago wanted for Caleb Williams. It wasn't the stellar debut Caleb Williams wanted for himself.

Yet despite his stat line reading 14 of 29 passing for just 93 yards and a 55.7 passer rating, the Chicago Bears won their season opener over the visiting Tennessee Titans 24-17 on Sunday.

The defense appears to have picked up right where it left off at the tail end of last season, forcing three turnovers and capitalizing on them, too. Williams and his offense didn't score a single touchdown and yet, there are still more than a few things to be encouraged about.

The first is the stellar defensive performance and knowing it's a unit the team can rely on, especially as the offense gains its footing. Immediate offensive success with a new coordinator, new weapons and a new rookie quarterback under center should never have been the expectation. I've spent this entire offseason and preseason trying to temper immediate expectations for this Bears offense. More than likely, it wasn't going to take hold right off the bat. There were going to be growing pains before the unit saw true success. Could it have happened? Sure. But the fact that it didn't shouldn't set off alarm bells in Chicago, especially knowing that the team can still win while the offense undergoes its growing pains.

If you were curious, guys like Aaron Rodgers and Matthew Stafford (Williams' two favorite quarterbacks), didn't have eye-popping debuts either. In Rodgers' first start during the 2008 season, he went 18 of 22 for 175 yards and a touchdown in a win over the Vikings. Rodgers also had to recover his own fumble in the game. Keep in mind, this was after riding the bench behind Brett Favre for three seasons.

Stafford, who started immediately for the Lions, went just 16 of 37 for 205 yards, no touchdowns and two interceptions. He had a passer rating of 27.4 in a loss to the New Orleans Saints in 2009.

For Williams, his stat line was just a few plays away from looking a whole lot better.

Wide receiver Keenan Allen had Williams' first touchdown pass as a Bear in his hands — until he didn't.

It was second-and-goal on the Tennessee 6-yard line. A couple of things went wrong. Out of the shotgun, Williams fired to his left but Titans linebacker Jaylen Harrell was able to shed his block just enough to get a tiny piece of the pass.

Even still, the ball got to the corner of the end zone where Allen had beaten his defender, but it went in and out of his grasp. He was the second read on the play, with Williams looking DJ Moore's direction first. With him covered, Williams moved to Allen right on time, it was just blown up by both the Tennessee defense and Allen making an uncharacteristic mistake.

If Allen hauls that in, Williams has a score in the TD column on Monday morning. That probably makes Chicago feel a whole lot better.

And that wasn't the only near-hit to Allen.

And to be clear, this is exactly why I kept trying to temper *immediate* expectations. There’s a lot of new on this offense. Mistakes will happen.

But the more reps these guys get together, the more things like this missed opp won’t.

(Anticipation was there. Timing was not) pic.twitter.com/NYzXaPKw8N
— Carmen Vitali (@CarmieV) September 10, 2024

The Bears had third-and-three on the Tennessee 41-yard-line. The offense trotted out an empty formation with Williams alone in the backfield. Three wideouts were on the field with him along with running back Travis Homer and tight end Gerald Everett. Allen was out wide on the numbers, stacked on Williams' left side with hideout rookie Rome Odunze.

Tennessee countered with a single-high safety zone look with one defender down looking to press Odunze and another off, waiting for Allen to come into his zone. Allen releases and within two strides, the down defender passes off Odunze to the deeper defensive back and takes Allen himself, but Allen pulls a double move and beats him outright, streaking down the sideline nearly scot-free.

Meanwhile, Williams has taken a three-step drop out of the shotgun and is out of time as rookie defensive lineman T'Vondre Sweat is nearly in his lap. Williams is forced to let the ball go a little earlier than he wanted, throwing it too soon to a spot that Allen can't quite get to.

The anticipation was there. It looked to be Williams' second read, which he got to despite the incoming pressure. The ball left Williams' hand pretty effortlessly.

The real shame of it all is that the Tennessee defense all but completely lost Moore in the zone and he was wide open down the right side of the field. The deep safety perhaps had a chance but knowing Moore, that wouldn't have been a problem.

It's hard to get all the way through your progressions as a quarterback, especially with a front seven like the Titans.

With more reps, those missed connections will start to click. Williams will get deeper into his reads. The timing will eventually match up as Williams continues to understand the nuances of each receiver's route-running abilities and they, in turn, get to know Williams' timing, footwork and ball placement.

Had Williams connected on that throw to Allen, it would have added a minimum of 45 yards to Williams' yardage total and a maximum of 59 yards and a touchdown, giving him over 150 yards passing and a score. That looks a whole lot closer to Rodgers' first stat line, doesn't it?

In fact, Williams only connected with Allen on four of his 11 targets for a total of 29 yards. Williams was trying to get Allen the ball. That hit rate should go up in the coming weeks — and if it doesn't, then I'll start entertaining the panic.

Players like the Texans QB C.J. Stroud alter our expectations of rookie quarterbacks. It's the hardest position in football. And though it might look more similar to the college game than ever before, it is still significantly far off. We now have the benefit of looking at Stroud's season in hindsight and seeing the culmination of what it became. But Stroud didn't throw a touchdown and took five sacks in his first start last season. He had three games, in fact, where he didn't throw for a score. He and the Texans lost to the Carolina Panthers in Week 7, where Stroud threw for just 140 yards and an 81.9 rating. It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, even if the end result was over 4,000 yards and 23 touchdowns.

Progress wasn't linear for Stroud, as good of a season as he ended up having, and it likely won't be for Williams but that doesn't mean this still won't be a good thing in Chicago.

Until then, this offense needs patience. Williams needs patience. He might yet be the Prince Who Was Promised but he just has to get used to his subjects, first.

Carmen Vitali is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. Carmen had previous stops with The Draft Network and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. She spent six seasons with the Bucs, including 2020, which added the title of Super Bowl Champion (and boat-parade participant) to her résumé. You can follow Carmen on Twitter at @CarmieV.