CHIBears
Only 7 QBs have had a rookie pressure-to-sack % of 25% or higher since 2010, and it’s not a list you want to be on
Was reading an article today (https://www.dabearsblog.com/2025/calebs-close-up-part-4-under-pressure) about Caleb Williams and the Bears’ sack issues, and it gave me the most damning and concerning stat I’ve read about Williams. Only 7 rookie QBs have had a pressure to sack rate of 25% or higher. They are:
Christian Ponder
Kyler Murray
Blake Bortles
Zach Wilson
Blaine Gabbert
Marcus Mariota
Caleb Williams
The only one of those guys who turned out okay was Murray, and even so he’s not a winner. Wanted to get everyone’s thoughts on this.
Discussion
From Week 11 on (when we switched OCs).
Guess who led the league in this stat? Jayden Daniels.
Good OCs can minimize this issue
What was Calebs pressure to sack ratio from week 11 on?
Still not good lol. My point is this isn’t an indicative stat.
Weeks 6-18 Jayden is 2nd worst to Caleb at worst
This graph honestly makes me feel a lot better about the whole thing. Hertbert and Stroud are up there too, and there are plenty of bad quarterbacks with really great %'s here. Something to work on, but I don't think it's as damning as the headline to the post had me believing
Caleb’s % is extremely high. Definitely is a fine line between extending plays and bringing unnecessary pressure.
Caleb was at his best last year in the quick game - very high completion. If Ben’s system makes sense to Caleb, he will have more on time play.
I expect them to push the quick game heavily this year. His best attribute isn't the wacky escapes, it's his quick release
It is my biggest concern with Caleb.
His accuracy past 7 yards is leaps and bounds his biggest concern.
Big plays hunting is coachable. Faster decisions is coachable. Accuracy is who you are when you don't have a mechanical flaw to fix. And no one has shown any indication that Caleb has any mechanical flaw.
See I don’t agree. His deep ball wasn’t bad in college, it was even a strength his heisman season. So he’s proved he can do it. He wasn’t Anthony Richardson in college.
His sacks and P2S% is a life long issue though for him. It was present in college and now in the pros.
Sacks and holding onto the ball is the bigger issue imo.
College stats don't matter at all. You have a giant skill gap and players are absurdly open. Especially for a qb playing a weak conference.
Fields was the most accurate qb in blah blah blah. And only had 1 season with a good deep ball and always was one of the least accurate qbs in the league
Counter argument, Josh Allen.
But we can't blame accuracy on the coaches, so no, it's not a problem
We actually can to an extent. A lot of bad misses were miscommunications. Been no secret that the details were lacking last year.
Lol
Caleb's footwork was absolutely horrible last year. That's part of what made him so inaccurate. It seemed like a mechanics thing to me.
He was way better at throwing when he scrambled towards the sidelines and launched the ball with his natural talent.
Caleb's footwork was absolutely horrible last year.
Probably had some to do with Waldron telling him to just drop back to whatever felt right and not a set step count.
There isnt any metric that caleb wasnt at the bottom of accuracy.
This is just the desperation cope after reports came out waldron didnt have set drop backs.
Which impacts timing, not accuracy.
It's not like caleb was just missing. He was missing so bad even the defender couldn't make the catch. Just like Mitchell used to
I'm no QB coach who can break down CW mechanics but there's almost certainly small changes he can make to improve
Yeah I think it was everyone’s concern coming out of college and last season only heightened the concern. I still have hope that with a proper coach and OL he can get it down to a reasonable number.
If I remember correctly Burrow had a high P2S% in college. And had a 20%+ P2S% his first couple NFL seasons too. But Burrow mitigates it by avoiding bad situational sacks (in scoring range or on early downs). Instead taking sacks more towards center of field or on 3rd downs.
But burrow is one of the best QBs when under pressure per PFF and some other stats. So Caleb trying to mimic Burrow would be a high bar.
It's a problem, but here's my spin on it:
It's not a "can't recognize pressure" issue, it's an "overconfident in his ability to narrowly evade NFL defenders" issue.
So that's something that can be improved with experience.
Kyler Murray is the most similar QB on this list to Williams, and he significantly lowered his sack rate after his rookie year
Really good discussion on this on the Athletic Football Show. Caleb's pocket presence is actually really good. That's very atypical for guys who take a lot of sacks.
He can feel pressure and slide and get throws off with tough arm angles. Unlike most players who struggle here, you can actually see a path forward to Caleb.
Bears led the league in quick pressures and unblocked pressures and also led the league in downs of obvious pass situations. It's really hard to overstate how bad the situation was.
If by the end of the year, we aren't seeing improvement, then it's time to worry.
The obvious passing situations is a big one.
The best thing they can do for Williams' sack rate in 2025 is to cut down on penalties and early down unsuccessful runs.
Which is why I really don't wanna run Swift back out there as rb1
I’m getting horrible flashbacks of Mercedes Lewis being subbed in to commit a false start on a critical 3rd down. Too many penalties like that pushing back 2nd and 3rd downs.
4 first down penalties from him alone, 3 false starts and 1 holding. He didn't even play 20% of the snaps on offense. Also, his blocking was pretty bad. Dude was a complete net negative.
Lord I hated seeing him. Eberflus was so stupid about that “locker room guy” shit
What have you got against running it up the gut on first down with Swift for -1 yard?
If Swift continues to run like a grandma between the tackles, Monangai will take his job.
Pacheco was a solid RB before the injuries and Monangai was better than him at Rutgers.
And the comparison they used is instructive… Joe Burrow. His pressure to sack as a rookie was 21.9 but went up to 26.9 his second year. It’s not like the rate Caleb was at has never been seen by an elite QB.
Often for guys who have pocket feel, like Burrow and CW, it comes down to emphasis. Burrow was vocal about not caring too much about sacks, especially on later downs. Would rather hold it as long as possible hoping something came open, than check it down or throw it away. That's improved with time.
For Caleb, I think that's a big part of it, especially in college when he needed to score 40 points a game. I also think the Eberflus emphasis on turnovers played a big part. Caleb was way more willing to eat a sack than throw the ball in tight coverage last year.
Interesting - any idea what episode this is?
This was the episode where they talked about every second year quarterback, it's fairly recent, maybe published a couple of weeks ago?
How dare you have a reasonable take, as a Bears fan youre either supposed to soar with unbridled optimism or drown in unchecked despair.
It's definitely one of Caleb's biggest issues from his rookie year and obviously it needs to improve. But I am always skittish when I see very specific stat lines like these, good or bad.
First, considering the fact the cutoff is 2010, we're already immediately eliminating lot of data before the analysis even begins. Then, the author states the following criteria: "I examined sack and pressure to sack rates for all 44 QBs who threw at least 250 passes as rookies since 2010"
It is hard for me to make any defined conclusions when the data set is that restricted and pulled from a small sample size. Sure, you could say it's certainly part of the reason some of these guys flamed out as starters, but there's not enough information here to confidently state there's any correlation-causation effect at play.
The main thing that is missing here (and usually is with this sort of analysis) is context. The fact is all of these QBs are on this list for very different reasons, whether it's playstyle, lack of coaching/playcalling support, roster construction, organizational decisions, etc etc. So again, it's just hard for me to accept that this specific type of statistical analysis actually produces reliable predictive results that show up on the field.
A good example, I saw quite a few times that Caleb was one of the only rookie QBs in history to have such a high completion-INT ratio. Or how about this one: "Every QB this season with 3,500+ Pass Yards, 20+ Pass TDs and an INT% less than 1.5%: Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Justin Herbert, Joe Burrow, Caleb Williams" That's a pretty good list to be on, no? But it doesn't really mean that much in terms of projecting his future in the NFL.
.TL;DR- This is definitely an issue for Caleb, but the analysis being done isn't reliable enough to draw any hard conclusions by any means
Should be top comment.
I have other criticisms of what the author did in their analysis too - like using 25% as a cutoff to establish 6 players “similar to Caleb” and 38 players who weren’t, then comparing average sack rates among those two groups in their sophomore seasons to go “look, players like Caleb get sacked more in their careers.” That’s just terrible, arbitrarily partitioned statistical analysis…but my criticism isn’t really relevant to what OP pulled.
I still don’t like saying, “only 7 rookie QBs had P2S higher than 25%.” Who was number 8? How many were above 20%? Usually these thresholds are selected to push whatever narrative the author wants to push.
Yeah, I agree. It's just not a reliable method and the author went into it with a clear intention behind why he wanted to find stats, not just objectively looking into it without bias.
Maybe it's because I'm an analytics nerd as an MLB fan, but I always feel like advanced statistics are far less reliable when applied to the NFL. Don't get me wrong, I do think they are important and when used properly they can help out when evaluating a player.
It's just that smaller arbitrary things like this get blown way out of proportion. The sample sizes are just too small and there are so many external variables to account for in every statistic. Variance and volatility are far too high with only 17 games played a year, with the context that each team usually makes drastic changes between each season.
When you compare that to MLB analytics, where there's a much larger body of work (182 games) and less variance between seasons, it paints a very different picture.
Caleb has a ton of work to do before he is a legit QB in the league. No way around it, he has to get much better in all aspects of playing the position for a team that wants to be a contender. Here’s to hoping he becomes who we all want him to be. I’m excited to see him evolve.
He also had the most pressures and sacks that were unblocked last year. I don't know how much that lowers the numbers but it can't help.
It feels like a situation last year that almost no one would have succeeded in. Let's revisit this at the end of this upcoming season before leaping to conclusions.
Don't forget Jared Goff was fucking awful till mcvay showed up.
Yeah this is one of those stats that while true somehow didn't match the eye test from me. I thought he had elite escapability from what I saw. But there were a lot of ones where he just had no chance.
He also had the most sacks escaped in the backfield
He has elite escape ability, he just relies on it too much. Dodging three guys and getting sacked by the fourth
We had a generationally bad head coach, a generationally bad offensive coordinator, and a standard bad OL. I see a lot of what he was doing as trying to cope with and do whatever he could in that environment. That includes desperately running around and trying to make something out of trash until you get sacked.
Concerning but I could also find a stat that says he’s on track to become a future perennial All-Pro. Spare Kyler, Caleb is one of if not the only on that list to have possibly elite arm talent. If BJ can get him to improvise as a last resort if all else fails on a play, and to trust a solid scheme, I think this becomes a nothing-burger. But if my Uncle were a chick he’d be my Aunt. Shored up interior should tell us early how much of this stat is Caleb holding the ball like a nincompoop in the face of pressure and how much was a poor offensive line and lack of effort from his weapons.
How many of the QBs on the list got OLine investment like Caleb just did?
I will also remind people that Caleb may have made it easy to sack him, but he also avoided the 2nd most sacks, behind Lamar. 52 is the number. So in theory he could’ve been sacked over 100+ times but his awareness allowed him to avoid a ton of them.
Doesn’t help when your coach refuses to watch film with you, I have a feeling BJ will nip it in the bud
I'm very confused why this is the image Reddit was showing, but hey we stan Queen so I don't mind lmao
Looked like he didn't want the checkdown on some plays, or the shorter routes or leaks like the tight end.happens when struggling to put up points and you think you need it all on one play. I think he'll progress just fine this year.
yes, sacks are bad. rookies are rarely equipped to solve things on the fly
insert new coach, scheme, and OL
every situation is unique
Yeah I think Bears fans need to be ready for the possibility that he stays bad.
Is this indicative of poor QBs or young QBs put into poor situations?
12 month ago: Caleb "best situation for a 1OA qb ever" Williams. Big pole poles da goat! Waldron fixed geno!
Today no one could possibly succeed with dj, allen, Rome, kmet, Braxton, Wright, swift, and rojo!
Pretending people were singling out the offensive skill players as the problem for the sacks is kinda misleading lol the line was dogshit
People were pretty optimistic about the line at this point last year though.
Yeah but if the subject is Caleb taking sacks, sans a couple games where it looked like a couple guys couldn’t get that open, it wasn’t anything to do with the receivers and Swift/Johnson.
1.) I listed both tackles
2.) Could have also listed tevan who is better than Jonah.
3.) Pretending calebs struggles were only sacks would be misleading
Poor qbs
My point is that every QB and every situation is different. This stat may be influenced by bad QB play, bad OLine play, poor offensive schemeing, lack of WR separation, etc.
Im not going to pound the table for the likes of Zach Wilson and Blake Bortles, but I dont personally think this singular data point is equivalent to poor QB play.
I don't understand why people are trying to cherry pick negative stats to predict that Caleb is a bust.
He will definitely be the starter the next two years. No matter the stats.
And proof will be in the pudding on whether we resign him. Are we a winning team and is Caleb a big part of why we're winning.
You guys pulling these random stats just look like dumb haters. Maybe watch his season 2 games before calling him a bust.
In addition, this post seems to be about career stats. Not rookie year stats. I'm sure plenty of successful quarterbacks had rookie years where you could cherry pick a negative stats.
It's just being realistic.
W/L is all that matters. The sacks certainly don’t help…
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Not really. This stat is representative of how he performed when he's under pressure, not how much he's under pressure (he had the 10th worst pressure rate last season at 23%). It doesn't matter if its 10 times or 30 times. Not completely discounting it as a factor as fatigue from constant pressure could play a role, but its also a reflection of pocket presence and the ability to get rid of the ball (which everyone can acknowledge is an issue).
This number is primarily on Caleb. If I were to point to external factors leading to this it would be the play calling more-so than the OL. That's were we have to hope BJ can play a big role in 18s development.
This gives me flashbacks of Justin. At least Justin could run. Is it just me or does anyone think Ben took this job because he knew we had a solid backup that can rub an offense? I’m calling it. Bagent starting by week five.
Bagent is mediocre at best. He aint that guy man.
List of Rookie QBs that are named Caleb Williams. its not a list you want to be on
- Caleb Williams
you must be a JF1 truther.
Do we really need to be like this? Caleb Williams is our perfect little prince and anything that speaks otherwise must be opposed?
Williams was underwhelming as a rookie given his pedigree coming into the NFL. The Bears were a shit-show around him. A rookie year does not make or break a career. We can call a spade a spade when it comes to 2024. It's okay.
Can I come down on "he showed flaws that he needs to improve on but calling it underwhelming is kinda insane and expectations for rookie QBs are way too high."
He was drafted first overall and wasn't close to being the best rookie qb. It was definitely underwhelming.
Then your expectations are silly.
Because there were a lot of QBs taken after him, the odds were always good someone would do better. He was never a favorite against the entire field.
And that QB who had a clearly better rookie season put up one of the best rookie seasons ever
Expecting the 1st overall pick to be better than the 3rd or 4th best qb in his class isn't some crazy standard.
He was better than the 3rd and 4th qb in his class.
Jayden and Nix were better.
Jayden Daniels was neither the third nor fourth qb taken in his draft.
Nix? Meh. I know he has the Tebow argument, but he didn't look better than Williams to me
I meant that third or fourth best qb, not the third or fourth taken
Absolute biggest positive I saw from him in year 1 was simply his "it" ability. He put together some amazing drives in 4th quarters, and set them up to win quite a few games only to have some mishap result in an L. But the moxy he showed on those late drives is something you can't teach. The horrible starts and first halves, I think that can be improved with coaching and experience, but the clutch factor, you either have or you don't, and from what we saw in year 1 this dude absolutely has the ability to put together a game-winning drive late in games.
It was the biggest knock on Caleb as a prospect. He holds the ball forever, looking for the killshot. Hopefully it’s something BJ and staff have been working on with him. It’s ok to just take what’s there
I think this is a huge part of the coaching problem too. He got away with it more in college but NFL coaches should be helping him with this and I’m very optimistic that BJ will be all over it
Reports already came out that even though Caleb had a completion for 20+ yards, Ben was on his ass about him being “too slow” and “you can’t do that”.
There were a lot of plays where the check down would have been there last year if he had gotten to it faster. He moved through his progressions but sometimes you could tell he wasn't sure what the defense was showing him and it would cause a hesitation on a read.
He had a brutal welcome to the NFL interception against the colts on a play like that
At least he doesn’t seem clueless. Some guys you see right away that they can’t do it. I’m more optimistic with him.
Justin Fields was a good example of this. It was obvious he had no clue what the defense was doing/going to do and where he should be throwing it. He didn't even know when to hit his WR's coming out of breaks a lot of times. Which also goes along with not knowing what the D is doing.
There is a balance. You don't want to coach the playmaking out of him but there is a time and place to do that vs take what's given. I think there was too much of the extremes last year.
Think part of the problem last year was there was nothing there way too often.
Pretty much the reason Fields never became a franchise QB. He’d wait for the perfect throw and once it became evident it wasn’t there he’d mentally freeze and there’d be no throws and he’d get sacked
Hope Caleb learns to take the easy stuff
I remember pointing this out in the highlight clips and scouting reports. Large portion of the sub wanted to bury their head in the sand about this issue and now act shocked that it's still the same.