4 days ago
Same problems from last season confront Chicago Bears and Caleb Williams
As Caleb Williams is learning the new Chicago Bears offense under new head coach Ben Johnson, there will be growing pains. However, mistakes that keep repeating themselves may not get labeled as mere growing pains. Caleb Williams was under a lot of pressure last season. He faced many obstacles throughout the season. One issue he helped perpetuate was a large number of pre-snap mistakes.
Last season the Bears had 42 pre-snap penalties, behind only the Cleveland Browns (45) for the most in the NFL. One of the best examples of this was last season's end to the Bears' game versus the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving, when the Bears gave that game away due to a terrible pre-snap sequence which ultimately got coach Matt Eberflus fired.
Ben Johnson was hired to fix the mistakes of the last staff and get Caleb Williams on track. Johnson is being paid to coach Caleb to live up to his No. 1 NFL draft position, but this issue needs to be at the forefront of items that need to be corrected immediately in Chicago.
Vincent Parise with Bears Wire gave his thoughts on this huge concern at Bears training camp, including Ben Johnson's thoughts on the matter:
"Through a couple of weeks of training camp, pre-snap penalties have been an issue. That can happen when an offensive line has more new faces than returning ones. Having an inexperienced quarterback and tight end can lead to these issues, as well. That was evident during Sunday's Family Fest, where quarterback Caleb Williams committed three delay of game penalties during the two-hour practice. Following practice, Johnson addressed the delay of game penalties and is adamant that they need to work on correcting it.
"'Yeah, it's something that we're going to have to address, for sure,' Johnson said. 'It showed up more today than it has in practice. This was more like a real game, and if it continues like that, we're not going to win many games.' It will be incredibly difficult for Williams to run the offense smoothly if he is unable to get in a rhythm. Nothing takes them out of that rhythm if they can't avoid taking penalties. We've seen it in the past with previous Bears' regimes."
This offense has an extreme amount of weapons, great creativity, and a quarterback with immense potential, but mistakes such as this could get in the way of this offense having any success. That and a lot of other factors stopped the Bears' offense last season.
Ben Johnson comes into this job with ample NFL credibility. He knows how to cultivate a high-caliber offense. Yet, it will take time, especially given that the Bears have a lot of moving parts. This is an issue to be concerned about right now, and if it continues into the regular season, the Bears will remain stuck as a franchise.
This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: USC's Caleb Williams needs to cleanup pre-snap process with Bears
