What does Bears quarterback Caleb Williams have to do to increase his completion percentage in his second year with Ben Johnson?

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Rahimi & Grote Show 12 min 4 speakers 5 chapters transcribed 2 months ago

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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

Marshall Harris 0:00

Rahimi Harrison-Grody.

Vinny Rotino 0:02

AJ, how are you?

Marshall Harris 0:03

Good. I can't believe how fancy y'all are now. I mean, it used to just be a radio call-in show. Now I got to put clothes on to do this thing. I can't peak too early. I got to kind of try to control my peaking. So, you know, it's a little early to already put a shirt and a hat on. Middays 10 to 2 on 104.3 The Score.

Ben Johnson 0:22

If we want to be elite, we want to be that 70 percent marker. And so we fell short of that. And, you know, we don't shy away from that. I think when you look at it for us to get to 65 percent completion, even cut that in half, we need to find 40 more completions over the course of the season. Well, let me tell you something. When you watch the self scout, there's 80, 90, 100 completions we left out on the table. And I'm not just talking about completions. passes dropped. I know that's the first thing that probably comes to mind, but every team's going to have some passes that are dropped on the ground by their route runners and catchers, so that's going to happen.

Vinny Rotino 1:01

That is Ben Johnson. That's when he was on with CHGO at the owner's meetings talking about what he wants to see out of his team. This is Rahimi Harrison-Grody on 104.3 The Score.

What completion percentage target did Ben Johnson set for Caleb Williams?

Vinny Rotino 1:12

And as we head toward training camp, there's been not just discussion from us, whether it's quarterback play, whether we want to see more out of the Bears, etc., It's also been out of the national pundits and look no further than our friends at the athletic football show. They had a really good podcast that just dropped this week regarding not just Caleb Williams. They went into the Bengals offense as well, but the majority of it was talking about what to expect and what are the reasonable expectations out of Caleb Williams this season. And Marshall, I think they hit on some stuff that we've all talked about the completion percentage. But it's how you get from point A to B. Ben Johnson's right. It's not just drops, as we've seen.

How many completions does the Bears offense need to hit a 65% completion rate?

Vinny Rotino 1:55

There's more to it than that. First was avoid the sacks. Now it's complete more passes.

Marshall Harris 2:01

Well, one of the ways that Caleb Williams cut down from, what, 68 to 24 sacks over the course of year one to year two was the fact that he'd just get rid of the ball. Not necessarily to a person, but just get rid of the ball.

Vinny Rotino 2:12

Yes. Yeah, actually, to not a person is sometimes the best option, as we have seen. So we knew, and you and I have talked about it a lot, one of the first things Ben Johnson said was, I need the receivers to catch the ball more often and better. That is something that he brought up at the end-of-season press conference. It was very much top of mind. And I don't think you guys need the coach to say that.

Are drops the main reason Caleb Williams' completion percentage was low last season?

Vinny Rotino 2:35

We all saw the same thing. But what's interesting is the... reputation that the Bears have built the highlight reel plays that Caleb Williams can make the scramble drill when it works has been very effective but apparently the devil is not in those details listen to what Robert Mays had to say regarding Caleb Williams's completion percentage last season and the contrast between him and the rest of the league

Robert Mays 3:03

Obviously, completing 58% of your passes when your coach explicitly before the season asked you to complete 70 is not a good thing. Derek's point about the type of offense I do think has merit. I think it's a little bit less aggressive. It's not so aggressive that it excuses completing 58% of your passes. I think that's where I land with it. But there are a lot of reasons for this. Like we talked about, he is not making or until the playoffs when I think he was a little bit more aggressive. He just wasn't making very many negative plays like that just wasn't happening. The only quarterbacks in the NFL last year who had at least 500 snaps that had a had less combined EPA lost on sacks and interceptions last year than Caleb Williams or Jordan Love and Bo Nix.

Robert Mays 3:49

Those are the only two guys. He's just not making a lot of negative plays. And some of that is driven by the fact that he's missing big on some of these throws to avoid negative plays. And he's threw the ball away a ton last year.