It’s been a rough 72 hours in Bears land. I suppose that’s what happens when a team with real expectations loses a game the way it did in Washington on Sunday. If you needed a palate cleanser before turning the page to Arizona, rookie quarterback Caleb Williams provided it.
Williams admitted that the ending in Washington stunk, but more importantly, he acknowledged that he stunk for much of the game. Williams didn’t deflect, dodge, or point fingers. He just wore an ugly loss for 10 minutes at the podium.
This is yet another display of Williams’s maturity beyond his years.
“We just lost the game, and we lost the game in a way that sucks,” Williams said.
Caleb Williams Shoulders the Blame For Week 8 Loss
Williams said he didn’t play well enough for much of the game but that the offense’s ability to put together a pair of potential game-winning drives late was a positive. He also addressed the team’s repeated inability to start games fast.
“First half, I didn’t play necessarily the way that I wanted to. I think the ability to snap and start getting things going late in the game, being down that much, and having so many negative drives or stalled drives and things like that, I think is a positive.
“Obviously, we have to start fast. We have to figure out ways to do that. We have to figure out ways to maintain and keep that going throughout four quarters … We need games like that. There’s going to be games like that and we have to be able to pull it out at the end.”
Bears Head Coach Matt Eberflus said he and the captains met today before the team’s walk-through. Williams said there was a mature conversation, and at the end of the day, everyone in that room wants to win.
“We just had a grown-men talk and went back and forth. No raising voices or anything. Nothing like that. It’s just real talk. We want to win.”
These captain or leadership council meetings have been talked about plenty this week. Wide receiver DJ Moore told reporters today that he believes the Bears are a player-led team. Williams agrees and sees that as a good thing.
“OK, teams, nobody leads; good teams, coaches lead; great teams, the players lead,” Williams told reporters as relayed something he had been told in recent years and believes to be true.
If Williams is leading that charge, the Bears are in good shape. He consistently owns his mistakes and softens the blow of others by somehow making their mistakes his own.
“We have to find ways to be better for ourselves. There were plays in that game that we had to execute … You always have to look at yourself before you begin pointing fingers and make sure you’re doing things right. I think it starts there.”
When Washington connected on that Hail Mary, Williams was seen on the sideline, visibly frustrated. Still, he explained on Wednesday that if he had been better on Sunday, Washington would have never had a shot at that play.
“Obviously, right in that moment, you’re angry, You’re furious that you just lost and you lost that way. It’s a tough way to lose. But like I said, there’s a sense of accountability that I have to take. I didn’t play well in the first half.”
In a week in which accountability has been the main storyline at Halas Hall, Caleb Williams displayed no shortage of it during his weekly presser on Wednesday. Williams will have to back those words up with a bounce-back performance in Arizona on Sunday, but his level of calm and accountability this afternoon was just what the doctor ordered.