Week 1: Bears vs Vikings on MNF

[Wilson A2000]

42 minutes ago, Soul said:

Accuracy at shorter distances, which was cool 10 years ago when 50 yarders were still considered difficult.  You can grab a kicker off the street who can reach distances well over that.  Santos has aged out of the league.  His skills are no longer up to standard.  He should be gone tomorrow.  I'm not sure of the contract implications, if any. 

4/16 through 2027

[UMFan83]

O’Sullivan mercifully put his Caleb tape breakdown behind a paywall

[minnesotacubsfan]

57 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Santos was 8 of 9 on 50+ yarders last year, the league as a whole was under 70%.

off year for him, career wise he's 29 for 45 with a long of 55 yrds

29 for 45

Edited September 9, 2025 by minnesotacubsfan

[gflore34]

44 minutes ago, Soul said:

There's a little bit of Chicago sports PTSD mixed in for sure, but to me there's serious, measurable concern that Williams is the guy both in terms of fit for BJ's offense and required skills like quick diagnosis of the defense and consistent accuracy.

Of course I'm hoping for big improvements.  I would love to be sitting here in December talking about how much of an idiot I am for doubting Caleb Williams.

I hear what you're saying, I believe, right now, BJ thinks Caleb is capable of running his offense.  Otherwise, he'd be coaching somewhere else, it sucks but, all we can do is wait.  Accompanying the wait will be a plethora of negative press and an overemphasis of every bad thing/result from Caleb.  

[mul21]

27 minutes ago, Soul said:

There's a little bit of Chicago sports PTSD mixed in for sure, but to me there's serious, measurable concern that Williams is the guy both in terms of fit for BJ's offense and required skills like quick diagnosis of the defense and consistent accuracy.

Of course I'm hoping for big improvements.  I would love to be sitting here in December talking about how much of an idiot I am for doubting Caleb Williams.

I've said it before, but I absolutely expected this offense to look clunky for a few weeks of the regular season.  It's disappointing they gave a game away last night and they probably had to have that game to have any hope at a winning record this year (unless there's a huge turnaround anyway). I'm hoping the missing guys is just an effect of not quite being comfortable with all the reads/progressions yet because the offense is new and he's still thinking too much instead of just reacting.

[Soul]

2 minutes ago, gflore34 said:

I hear what you're saying, I believe, right now, BJ thinks Caleb is capable of running his offense.  Otherwise, he'd be coaching somewhere else, it sucks but, all we can do is wait.  Accompanying the wait will be a plethora of negative press and an overemphasis of every bad thing/result from Caleb.  

That's a good point actually.  If you believe BJ is a smart guy (I do), then you also have to believe he saw in Caleb a guy who could possibly be successful in his system, even if it was from afar.

Edited September 9, 2025 by Soul

[UMFan83]

Just now, Soul said:

That's a good point actually.  If you believe BJ is a smart guy (I do), then you also have to believe he saw in Caleb a guy who could possibly be successful in his system, even if it was from afar.

I just keep going back to his insistence on only taking the Commanders job if they kept Sam Howell at QB and didn't draft a QB (ultimately Daniels).  Maybe that story is overblown, but the Commanders literally turned their jet around while en route to meet with Ben.

He might be a brilliant offensive mind and leader, but he's said repeatedly he's designing a new offense around Caleb, not trying to implement what he was doing in Detroit.  Which is ultimately a good thing...but what if his offensive concepts rely on a QB that can make the throws and stay in the pocket?

Maybe too much overthinking after 1 week...

[UMFan83]

lol

[Wilson A2000]

4 hours ago, UMFan83 said:

lol

Taking Taylor in the 4th round was crazy, but he’s supposed to be a much better punter than this

[minnesotacubsfan]

sometimes, I wish the bots on fb were right. saw a post saying the Bears let Santos go.....but i dont think they did

 

[Wilson A2000]

Jonah Jackson with a team low 31.1 PFF grade. Ouch! That was Ben Johnson’s hand-picked RG. 

[We Got The Whole 9]

Our run-stopping specialist hardly fared better.

 

Literally feel like the lowest scores I've ever seen.

[BigbadB]

6 hours ago, Wilson A2000 said:

Jonah Jackson with a team low 31.1 PFF grade. Ouch! That was Ben Johnson’s hand-picked RG. 

Was he lined up on Hargrave? That's a tough assignment in week 1. But that's probably not far off from being the league low, not just team low.

[Wilson A2000]

35 minutes ago, BigbadB said:

Was he lined up on Hargrave? That's a tough assignment in week 1. But that's probably not far off from being the league low, not just team low.

I think so. Allen and Hargrave had 6 pressures EACH. 

[Old Style]

7 hours ago, Wilson A2000 said:

Jonah Jackson with a team low 31.1 PFF grade. Ouch! That was Ben Johnson’s hand-picked RG. 

He had about 8 false starts. 

[Wilson A2000]

Ben Johnson said the plan was for Santos to kick the ball through the end zone to have more time on the clock should the defense force a three and out. But why would you risk losing 50 seconds of time when you could just kick it out of bounds, only lose 5 yards, and not put that on Santos who doesn’t have a strong leg and routinely doesn’t have the leg be able to kick it out of the end zone? Huge miss.

[BigbadB]

10 minutes ago, Wilson A2000 said:

Ben Johnson said the plan was for Santos to kick the ball through the end zone to have more time on the clock should the defense force a three and out. But why would you risk losing 50 seconds of time when you could just kick it out of bounds, only lose 5 yards, and not put that on Santos who doesn’t have a strong leg and routinely doesn’t have the leg be able to kick it out of the end zone? Huge miss.

Maybe the 4th round punter has a big enough leg to kick it out of bounds? The Manning boys said to kick it out of bounds. It's a 5 yard difference than kicking it out of the end zone. Regardless, kicking an earlier field goal instead of trying to get into the end zone would have given them a lot more time than whatever decision on the final kick off would have.

Ben will need to be better with his clock management going forward.

[UMFan83]

37 minutes ago, BigbadB said:

Maybe the 4th round punter has a big enough leg to kick it out of bounds? The Manning boys said to kick it out of bounds. It's a 5 yard difference than kicking it out of the end zone. Regardless, kicking an earlier field goal instead of trying to get into the end zone would have given them a lot more time than whatever decision on the final kick off would have.

Ben will need to be better with his clock management going forward.

Yeah it seemed like the obvious decision if you had even one ounce of doubt that he could kick it through the end zone.  I mean thats huge...the difference between having 15 seconds and 55 seconds to drive for a FG is monumental.  Once that kick was returned, unless the Bears somehow forced a turnover or a blocked punt, they were basically down to needing a crazy lateral play or a 30 yard pass to the sidelines and a Hail Mary to have any shot (a FG was probably not feasible without a huge penalty given Santos distance issues).

Those are the kind of botched decisions we fired Eberflus for.

[Old Style]

So BJ was the only person in the stadium who didn’t know Santos didn’t have the leg to kick it out of the EZ? Wonderful. 

[gflore34]

4th down miss to DJ, any chance Caleb was throwing to a spot and DJ was either late off line or timing was thrown off by the Vikings' LB?

[mul21]

1 minute ago, gflore34 said:

4th down miss to DJ, any chance Caleb was throwing to a spot and DJ was either late off line or timing was thrown off by the Vikings' LB?

Nah, DJ was nearly untouched and wide open.  It was just a terrible throw.

[gflore34]

7 minutes ago, mul21 said:

Nah, DJ was nearly untouched and wide open.  It was just a terrible throw.

Just curious, often hear about timing and throwing to spot, anticipation and all that horsefeathers.  The unfortunately aspect is it very well may get worse before it gets better.  Given it's the Bears, I'd say, the probability of things getting worse before they improve is 1 a.s. 

[Wilson A2000]

1 hour ago, BigbadB said:

Maybe the 4th round punter has a big enough leg to kick it out of bounds? The Manning boys said to kick it out of bounds. It's a 5 yard difference than kicking it out of the end zone. Regardless, kicking an earlier field goal instead of trying to get into the end zone would have given them a lot more time than whatever decision on the final kick off would have.

Ben will need to be better with his clock management going forward.

There was talk of that, but I’m not sure if you want Taylor kicking off in a crucial spot when he’s never done it in a game before. The play should have been to kick it out of bounds. That’s the right decision a $13 million coach should have made. 

[BigbadB]

25 minutes ago, Wilson A2000 said:

There was talk of that, but I’m not sure if you want Taylor kicking off in a crucial spot when he’s never done it in a game before. The play should have been to kick it out of bounds. That’s the right decision a $13 million coach should have made. 

It's stuff they needed to know before that situation. But, the Manning's were talking about scenario's while the Bears were making their last TD drive. I know most coaches cover their mouths to avoid opponents grabbing something of value in real time. Is there really no one that could have put a bug in one of the coaches ears way earlier about the best scenarios to prolong the game? Losing that 2 minute warning clock stoppage was not a good situation. Teams can easily get in field goal range in 55 seconds with no timeouts. Look what Minnesota did in one play before the half. How much time did they have?

[BigSlick]

22 hours ago, gflore34 said:

Honestly, anyone expecting the Bears, Ben Johnson and Caleb to click right out the gate was setting themselves up for disappointment.  You've got the monster of schedule coupled with a new coach, etc. and, of course, like most anything else in life, it's going to take some time.  If there's isn't noticeable improvement from Caleb coming out the bye or shortly thereafter I believe there's a good chance he'll be benched.

Yeah I just… I understand being super deflated and disappointed but it was literally the first game of Johnson’s entire head coaching career and Williams’s first game in the system. 
 

I’m willing to give them like, 5-6 games minimum before I make any grand proclamations. The problem is every horsefeathers game they have is against a playoff team from last year. There are basically zero pushover games, which is insane for a 4th place schedule