Why Caleb Williams believes he’ll be better in Week 2

LAKE FOREST – Caleb Williams isn’t interested in comparing himself to CJ Stroud. The comparisons between the Chicago Bears’ No. 1 draft pick and last year’s rookie of the year are apt this week with Williams and Stroud will square off Sunday night in Houston.

Stroud had one of the best rookie quarterback seasons in NFL history last year. He became just the fifth rookie to throw for 4,000 passing yards. His Texans not only made the playoffs, but also won their wild card game.

The narrative all offseason surrounding Williams has revolved around whether he can have a Stroud-like rookie season. Can he throw for a bunch of yards and lead the Bears to a playoff appearance?

NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” broadcast will certainly raise that question. The entire NFL world will be watching, too, with a primetime matchup between these two young QBs.

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“It’s not motivation for me, from him,” Williams said this week at Halas Hall. “My motivation is to be the best for the Chicago Bears, win games, get to the playoffs.”

He later added: “[My] motivation comes from myself and within this team, this organization.”

Head coach Matt Eberflus echoed that sentiment.

“Yeah, I don’t like comparing players because everybody’s journey is different,” Eberflus said. “Everybody moves through that in their own way. Again, it matters where you finish up, at the end of the day. I will say this, CJ did have a heck of a year with the yardage, managing the game, the explosive passes. I know he’s got some really good guys around him.”

It’s unfair to compare Stroud and Williams – especially with the retrospective knowledge that Stroud had a great rookie season. Stroud, remember, was the No. 2 pick behind Bryce Young. Stroud easily could’ve been stuck trying to work magic with the Carolina Panthers, something nobody envies with Young’s situation.

Williams, like Stroud, appears to be set up well to succeed as a rookie. He has veteran receivers in DJ Moore and Keenan Allen, plus a rookie first-round pick in Rome Odunze. He’s on a team with one of the best defenses in the NFL, a defense that basically won last week’s season opener for him.

Williams’ debut left a lot of meat on the bone. He totaled just 93 passing yards with no touchdowns, but he protected the ball and did enough to pull the offense into field goal range a few times.

The 22-year-old quarterback says he doesn’t get nervous before games. Even so, he missed some easy throws he normally makes. His accuracy appeared to be off the mark. Unusually so when compared to how he played in college and throughout training camp this summer.

It was around six throws that, obviously, if we would have hit those, everything would have seemed a lot different.”

—  Caleb Williams, Bears quarterback

“It was around six throws that, obviously, if we would have hit those, everything would have seemed a lot different,” Williams said. “Throws that we hit in practice all the time on simple routes, on intermediate and then the one or two deep balls. If you hit those, the game, everything kind of explodes and things would have been said differently about how we played on offense.”

Williams also noted that he felt he rushed his drop backs several times. His eagerness to get the ball into the hands of his offensive weapons overtook his fundamentals a little bit.

That might be the result of playing live football for the first time since November. It’s a lot different than practice for a quarterback, who the defenders aren’t aloud to touch in practice.

Quarterbacking across the league was rusty in Week 1. Seventeen starting quarterbacks across the league failed to reach 200 passing yards. Only two threw for 300 yards. NFL teams averaged 188.3 passing yards per game in Week 1. Per the Associated Press, that was the worst week in the NFL since Week 15 of 2007.

Passing across the NFL is going to improve as the season goes along. Williams believes he will connect on more of those gimme throws.

Frankly, Week 1 is about survival, and the Bears did that.

“We won our first game and felt super excited,” Williams said. “Felt super excited about not necessarily how I actually performed, but being able to come out with that win and being able to help lead these guys to that win. Feels good, really excited. It builds confidence when you can come out and do that. We’re building on the small things.”

For as good of a rookie season as Stroud had last year, he lost his first two games and allowed 11 sacks. It takes time, even for the best rookies.