Caleb Williams’ special trait gives Ben Johnson another threat to use going into another chess match against Brian Flores
Sunday’s game between the Chicago Bears and the Minnesota Vikings will be a back-and-forth chess match between Ben Johnson and Brian Flores, and Caleb Williams’ rushing ability gives the Bears a clear advantage.
Sunday’s game between the Chicago Bears and the Minnesota Vikings is going to be another all-star chess match between Bears head coach Ben Johnson and Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores that you won’t want to miss.
This is going to be some real strategic game-planning between two of the best play-callers on their respective sides of the ball. Every move is going to be made to set up the next move, and every move is going to have a counter on the other side of the ball.
“They do a great job,” Flores said Tuesday. “There’s shifts, there’s motions, there’s a lot of eye candy. They do everything that could potentially give a defense problems.”
It’s not just the eye candy that’s a problem when defending Ben Johnson’s offense. This is a physical unit that is merciless. They’re not going to play with their food. And Ben Johnson has one advantage up his sleeve looking at quarterback Caleb Williams.
Ben Johnson’s offense will have plenty of ways to attack Brian Flores’ defense
Caleb Williams showed a lot of growth in Week 1 and improvements in key areas against the Carolina Panthers. The Bears are hoping that wasn’t just a flash in the pan because if he continues to be on fire like that, this offense can attack a defense in any way.
“We’ll take whatever the defense gives us,” Johnson told Jeff Joniak on ESPN 1000 Monday. “I think that’s the good thing about where he’s at right now is if you’re a defensive coordinator putting on this tape, I think it’s a really big challenge. Do you want to load the box and stop the running game with Swifty and this offensive line? But, at the same time, you’ve got to be very much aware of the stress that Caleb can put on you – both from the throwing perspective and with his legs.”
Not only that, the Bears also have a ton of weapons in the passing game for Williams to turn to. I mean Chicago dropped 59 points without a single reception from arguably their top weapon in tight end Colston Loveland. It’s a true pick-your-poison offense the Bears are running, and just when you think you have everyone covered, there goes Caleb Williams running out of the pocket.
“Having a quarterback that’s able to toggle between the two [passing or running], it’s a real luxury,” Johnson added.
Caleb Williams’ rushing ability gives Ben Johnson a major X-factor to work with
Caleb Williams has always been a dual-threat when it comes to his passing and rushing ability. Last year it was on full display after mastering his sack avoidance and knowing when to take off. That presents a significant challenge for Flores because he can’t just send a relentless blitz against Williams every single play like he can with other QBs.
“Hopefully we can bring this dynamic with us each and every week,” Johnson said of Williams’ rushing ability. “He and I, as we went over the tape, there’s a couple times where I don’t have the best call on for the defensive coverage and this is the marriage between the play call and our quarterback is he’s able to make this thing right for us.”
Not only does it save a bad play-call, Williams has the ability to turn any run into an explosive gain. Williams is ridiculously fast, as evident by him hitting 20+ miles per hour on his two rushing touchdowns last Sunday.
“He’s really fast, I don’t know that he gets enough credit for how fast he really is,” Johnson added. “It’s one of those things that we may or may not lean into by the play call and it might just be organically that it happens like that. We trust him to know when those times are. But we think it’s really really dangerous for our offense.”
It’s going to present a tough challenge for Flores when game planning for this week. Do you get aggressive by blitzing Williams and risk him escaping for a big play? Or do you try and disguise the coverage with more defenders dropping back to force Williams to think?
And that’s just preparing for one player. Defending against that run game is an entirely defend monster to prepare for.
