The Bears have a fatal flaw preventing a certain type of quarterback from succeeding.
I still like Caleb Williams as a prospect, but the Chicago Bears just…let’s back up for a second.
If the Bears seem cursed, there’s a good reason for that. The Bears have been run by either George Halas or his daughter, Virginia McCaskey as principal owners for over a century now, and so much of what keeps the modern Bears down is set at a macro level from on-high that it’s often difficult to make the small changes necessary to succeed. And these things, they compound over time. Always.
Take, for example, the Bears’ traditional identity as “The Monsters of the Midway.” This identity is based on the idea of having a strong defense and powerful rushing attack, which worked fine through the Ditka/Payton era, but at some point football changed, and the Bears really didn’t follow suit until arguably the Jay Cutler era. Even then, the Lovie Smith teams were very “MoM” in their construction focused far more on finding guys like Urlacher and Briggs instead of offensive help. They’ve tried to move on in the post-Mitch Trubisky era, focusing on building a modern offense with a modern quarterback, but some old habits die hard, and some actions taken ten years ago still ensure they can’t possibly win today.
Ryan Pace took over GM responsibilities from Phil Emery in 2015. That team featured Cutler, who was protected by Kyle Long and Charles Leno at tackle, with Patrick Omameh and Vlad Ducasse at guard flanking center Matt Slauson. Just before the 2016 season, the Bears paid Kyle Long to be the long-term solution at tackle, giving him a four-year, $40 million contract. Unfortunately, Long suffered through an injury-plagued 2016 season and never again play more than 10 games in any season until he retired after 2019. The Long saga should have been a clue to the front office that the offensive line is always a position that requires depth, and a lot of it, but that’s not what happened.
Pace conducted the 2015-2021 drafts for the Bears, covering 46 total picks. Of those 46, nine players were offensive linemen. The highest picks were second-round guard Cody Whitehair, second-round center James Daniels, and in his final draft, second-round tackle/OL Teven Jenkins. Of the remaining six, two were drafted in the seventh, one in the sixth, two in the fifth, with only center Hroniss Grasu, drafted in 2015, cracking the first four rounds. There’s nothing wrong with attempting to build depth in the later rounds, but Pace was especially lax in attempting to pick up tackles, and two of the nine (Jenkins and Larry Borom) were drafted in the same class as Fields. Pace knew it was going to be a problem.
Pace’s other problem was in giving up his draft picks far too easily. He loved to move up in the draft, something that has been demonstrably shown to reduce overall value in the draft, and it left the Bears without extra picks to shore up weaker positions like the line. While Pace was making his 46 picks over his tenure, the Packers picked 62 players. Compounding this issue, Pace left the cupboard bare for his replacement Ryan Poles, who has, so far, had 26 picks to work with, while the Packers, over the same span, have made 35. The Bears did go heavy on linemen in the 2022 draft, selecting four (Braxton Jones, Zach Thomas, Doug Kramer, and Ja’Tyre Carter) but none earlier than the fifth round. Poles did select Darnell Wright in the first round in 2023, and Kiran Amegadjie in the third this past year, but with so few picks available, he has had to make difficult choices. Oh, by the way, since Ryan Poles took over in Chicago, the Packers have drafted Zach Tom, Sean Rhyan, Rasheed Walker, Jacob Monk, Travis Glover, and Jordan Morgan.
Overall, in the Pace/Poles era, the Bears have made 72 draft picks while Green Bay has made 97, and with more late round picks (and a better developmental organization run by Adam Stenavich) the Packers have found the occasional Jon Runyan and Rasheed Walker to complement their high-level talent like Tom. All of this has been especially disastrous for the Bears because of the specific flaws present in who they have selected at quarterback.
Jordan Love had plenty of flaws as a college quarterback at Utah State, but his internal clock was never one of them. Love’s Pressure to Sack ratio in his excellent 2018 season was just 10.1%, an incredible number. It did increase slightly in his disastrous 2019 season, but at 15.9%, it was still well within the norms of what is acceptable at the NFL level.
When I scout quarterbacks, I now focus a great deal on Pressure to Sack ratio due to a lesson I learned when evaluating Justin Fields. I refer to this adjustment internally as “the Justin Fields rule,” in fact. Fields had all of the makings of an excellent NFL quarterback. He had one of the most accurate seasons you will ever see while at Ohio State, he’s incredibly fast, and his arm, while not outstanding, was good enough. I overrated Fields in my pre-draft scouting, and was genuinely surprised when Chicago, and their terrible offensive line, got him killed. Upon re-examining the statistics that matter most in evaluating quarterbacks, one stood out above all: Pressure to Sack.
Fields was sacked on 25% of his pressures in his final season at Ohio State, and never had a number under 22.1% while he was there. The reason this stat is so effective is that it first removes the quality of the offensive line from the equation. Fields wasn’t pressured much behind an elite line at OSU, but when he was, he was slow to react, an enormous red flag given the quality of his supporting cast. Taking sacks is bad enough on its own, but the stat also serves as a proxy for reaction time, and quick thinking. When pressure does arrive, quarterbacks have to process the situation with lightning speed, remembering their hot routes, deciding whether to run or throw the ball away, all the while keeping their eyes upfield for a potential scramble drill. Quarterbacks with poor Pressure to Sack numbers often struggle at the next level, especially if their line is creating more pressures for them. With more pressures, the number of bad plays just compounds.
Fields isn’t the only example that stood out. Kentucky’s Will Levis was sacked on 26.8% of his pressures and never once had a rate below 20.3%. Justin Fields isn’t a starter anymore in Pittsburgh, but he did have 160 pass attempts this year, and he was sacked on 9.09% of his dropbacks, the eighth most in football. Levis, who has unsurprisingly missed a chunk of the season with a shoulder injury, has been sacked on 12.94% of his dropbacks, second only to Deshaun Watson (out for the year). Caleb Williams is third, having been sacked on 11.45% of his dropbacks.
I do quite a bit of work on the draft every season using QBOPS/QWOBA (see here, if you are unfamiliar) to evaluate prospects. I love Caleb as a prospect. He’s been well above average on accuracy and production for multiple seasons, but I did have a few red flags on him. One of the biggest was his 23.2% pressure-to-sack ratio, the worst of all of the draftable quarterbacks in his class. And then he landed on the Bears.
I though Williams would be able to overcome a poor line given the skill position talent on the team. Williams was successful both in and out of structure in college, and he should have been able to get the ball out quickly to DJ Moore and Cole Kmet, to say nothing of Keenan Allen or rookie Rome Odunze. But the line suffered injuries and became even worse, and offensive coordinator Shane Waldron was not able to adjust his game-calling to the reality of the situation.
This is not an impossible task! Justin Fields has been quite a bit better in Pittsburgh, and Jayden Daniels, who was worse than Williams in his second-to-last season and improved in his final season to around 20%, has been sensational. Washington’s line has been quite a bit better, and the scheme is a much better fit for his outstanding running, which has made all the difference.
With apologies to the New York Jets, there is no worse place for a quarterback to end up than in Chicago, but even that’s not entirely true. It’s more that poor drafting and depth on the line created by Ryan Pace made it impossible to succeed with a high P/S quarterback, either Fields OR Williams. The Bears will forever regret taking Mitch Trubisky over Patrick Mahomes, and it’s hard not to wonder if the same thing doesn’t happen here with Drake Maye, who beat them on Saturday, and in his final year in college was sacked on 19.5% of his pressures. There also would have been less pressure to play Maye immediately as he was seen as more of a project and would have removed some pressure from the proceedings. Michael Penix led his class with a 7.6 P/S, by the way.
I still think the Bears can turn this around, but they should absolutely consider pulling Williams until they have some semblance of an offensive line. Getting him killed back there isn’t doing anyone any favors. DJ Moore has also become a malcontent, purportedly asking for Williams’ benching, and quitting in the middle of plays, and he is also likely not helping matters.
And so, the Bears are cursed, once again, because a previous regime essentially eliminated the possibility of succeeding with a certain type of quarterback, and it is that type of quarterback who has been available to them twice in a row. It’s entirely possible that a more limited quarterback like Bo Nix (7.6 P/S) would be succeeding in an offense with a poor line and good skill position players. Denver isn’t that different from the Bears and they’re 5-5 having played a much more difficult schedule. But that’s not what Chicago has. Chicago has a high-ceiling talent with a single fatal flaw. And for the Bears, it has been fatal, once again. We love making fun of the Bears here at Acme Packing Company dot com, and we’re happy they accommodate us so well. Time is indeed a flat circle.