How much did the Bears help Caleb Williams with O-line acquisitions?
Looking at Chicago's trades for guards and whether it will change the shape of the NFC North
By Clay Petry and Matthew Coller
Caleb Williams’ rookie season was a nightmare for the Chicago Bears. They finished with just five wins, fired their coach, and had a bunch embarrassing moments along the way (shout out Tyrique Stevenson). When the dust settled, Williams finished with 68 times sacked, the third-most in NFL history in a single season.
With new head coach Ben Johnson in place, the first thing Chicago did in response to Williams’s sack-laden rookie year was acquire two guards, trading for veteran Jonah Jackson from the Los Angeles Rams and Kansas City Chiefs star Joe Thuney.
The question on everyone’s mind as the Minnesota Vikings, Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers try to keep their foothold on the division is: Will the improved line change Williams’ fate and help him become the star QB1 that Chicago has been dreaming about or will the new-look line make minimal difference because of Williams’ tendency to take sacks?
*All stats via PFF
Caleb Williams’ History
Williams has always been a great quarterback when he doesn’t have pressure in his face. During his senior season when he was kept clean, he had a PFF grade of 94.3 (out of 100) and an average time to throw (TTT) of 2.5 seconds. That same year, Williams posted just a 41.4 grade under pressure—an alarmingly low number. For context, Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye posted grades of 82.0 and 66.5, respectively. Additionally, Williams' average time to throw under pressure was 4.47 seconds which was the highest in all of FBS. This shows that when Williams is pressured, he doesn't look for his safety valve. Instead, he holds the ball and uses his athleticism to scramble around, which was spectacular when it works but often catastrophic when it doesn’t work.
These problems continued once Williams entered the league. Williams’ 68 sacks as a rookie stand out, but the numbers behind them are even more concerning for the Bears. He ranked 9th in passing attempts between 0-9 yards and 6th in screen passes. That means that his play callers were going out of their way to give him a high percentage of plays that shouldn’t lead to sacks and yet he still approached a near historic number.
How much of the problems were along the offensive line? The PFF data suggests a lot less than you would think.
As a team, PFF graded the Bears 9th best in the NFL in pass blocking grade. How could his sacks be so high and the line still grade well? PFF also charted Williams as being responsible for 17 sacks and 38 pressures, No. 1 and No. 3 in the NFL.
Among starting tackles, Chicago’s duo ranked 16th and 27th out of 60 in pass blocking grade. Their two guards were 5th and 9th.
We have to consider that it’s not apples to apples when we compare the numbers between Chicago’s guards and their new players because all the short passes and screens may have helped them avoid negative blocks but in 2024 Bears guard Matt Pryor had a 78.1 PFF grade and 97.4 Pass Blocking Efficiency (24th) and Teven Jenkins scored 75.8 and 97.7 PBE (18th).
In Jonah Jackson’s best year (2023) with at least 750 snaps, he graded 62.7 in pass blocking and had a 96.8 PBE. Those ranked 29th and 38th.
Thuney could be a significant upgrade. He has been elite for many years and ranked No. 2 in the NFL in pass blocking grade last year. Still, his PBE was only 0.4 better than Jenkins with a QB who similarly scrambles around.
Is that enough to change Williams’ trajectory?
A major issue that has carried over from college is Williams’ tendency to hold onto the ball too long, which is still going to cause offensive linemen problems even if they are better players. In 2024, Williams had the second-longest time to throw under pressure at 4.15 seconds. No offensive linemen is blocking today’s D-lines for that long.
So unless Williams changes, the results aren’t likely to turn around in a massive way. Can he do it?
History suggests that rookie QBs who take this many sacks often struggle in subsequent seasons unless key adjustments are made. Let’s look at comparable players who were first-round picks and took heavy sack totals in their early years:
Deshaun Watson: Watson was sacked 62 times during his first full year starting in 2018. In 2019, Watson cut that number to 44 sacks while improving his passing stats. Then in 2020, he led the league in passing while keeping his sack total in check. He made clear improvements working to get the ball out quicker and avoid sacks. In his rookie year, his grade while under pressure was 53.6, which improved to 73.0 in 2020.
Bryce Young: Young was drafted into one of the worst situations in recent memory and took 62 sacks as a rookie in 2023. That season his grade while under pressure was an abysmal 31.1. After being benched, Young got a second chance in year two and he looked like a completely different quarterback. He cut the sack total to 29 and improved his under-pressure grade to 64.9. He proved that not all talent shows up instantly—sometimes it needs time to develop. If the Panthers continue to build their offense around him, they could become a force to be reckoned with in the NFC South for years to come.
Ryan Tannehill: Unfortunately for Tannehill, he inherited one of the worst offensive lines in football when he entered the league. PFF graded their line as the 4th worst unit in the league in 2013. That unit gave up 58 sacks, and then in 2014 “Bullygate” popped off which became a huge distraction not only for the offensive line, but for the whole team. Tannehill didn’t get the sacks in check until he left the Dolphins and landed in Tennessee where he cut his average sacks to the low 30s for the rest of his career. Despite the lower sack totals, Tannehill’s percentage of sacks per drop-back didn’t change much from Miami to Tennesse (8.3% to 7.9%) and he still struggled under pressure. In his time with the Titans, his under-pressure grade never reached 60+ which could be the reason they never got over the hump from 2017-2021.
Justin Fields: 2022 was Fields' first full year as a starter and he took 55 sacks. His average time to throw was 3.45 seconds, the longest in the league. Although his decision-making and footwork improved in 2023 and his sack total dropped to 43, it was clear that he was not developing as fast as his coaches would've liked as he only dropped his TTT to 3.39 which was the longest in the league again. He got a fresh start in Pittsburgh this past year and went 4-2 in the first six games. He made even more improvements to his urgency by dropping his TTT to 3.08. Still, his sack percentage went from an all-time bad number at 12.3% to a really bad number at 9.0% and the Steelers believed they could get more out of Russell Wilson. Fields has made some improvement, but will likely be looking at his last chance to earn a starting job next season.
Blake Bortles: Bortles got off to a rough start and got sacked 55 times during his rookie year in 2014. It wasn’t just the pressure, Bortles looked flustered in all aspects of the game. In 2017 he cut that sack number down to 24 and they reached the AFC championship game but his sack percentage ballooned again the next season and that was his last year as an NFL starter.
Recent history does show enough improvement from sackable first-rounders for all hope not to be lost for the Bears but there definitely isn’t a trend of players changing their stripes. If Williams doesn’t make the necessary adjustments he could be looking at at Fields-like trajectory.
With new head coach Ben Johnson now at the helm, there's reason to believe he could bring over some of the Detroit magic (and blocking) that helped get Jared Goff back on track. But Williams is different. He’s an improviser who needs time to adapt to a more structured offense. How will Johnson tailor the offense to Williams’ strengths? Can he work with Williams to develop quicker reads, better pocket awareness, and quicker throws?
During Johnson's introductory press conference at Halas Hall, he was asked about his plan to develop Williams' talent further. Johnson replied: “There are already some things he and I have talked about that I’ve noticed in his game, and I want to address and take a look at early on here.” While Johnson kept the specifics under wraps, it’s clear that if the Bears want to succeed, Johnson knows he will need to help Williams improve his decision-making and get rid of the football more quickly.
The key question remains: Will Williams make the right adjustments? Can he break the habit of holding the ball too long and become more efficient in his decision-making? Coaching and O-line acquisitions can only do so much.
This year will tell us whether Caleb Williams becomes the force that Bears fans thought they were getting with the No. 1 overall pick or the sack-prone enigma that rivals in the NFC North will exploit.
Clay Petry is Purple Insider’s intern for this spring. He attends the University of Pennsylvania and played football there.
Always felt to me like Caleb was a guy who was going to need to go to the right situation with the right OC/Head Coach to succeed. All the talent in the world, but clearly needed to make some pretty significant changes to the way he played. Having some better guards might help that along, but as all those great PFF stats show, it’s mostly going to be on him. He obviously didn’t have the right situation in CHI last year, so we’ll see if Ben Johnson makes a difference. I’m not entirely sold on him as a HC.