Ben Johnson was non-committal on Chicago’s QB situation coming out of Week 5, and the Bears are hoping things can clear up soon
The Chicago Bears are hoping to have Caleb Williams back from injury in Week 6, because the alternatives no longer looked as encouraging after Week 5 loss to the Green Bay Packers.
What a difference a week can make in the NFL world. This time last week, the Chicago Bears were riding high off a two-game win streak with two different quarterbacks not named Caleb Williams running head coach Ben Johnson’s offense.
One week later, the Bears are desperately hoping that Caleb Williams can return to practice this week and make enough forward progress to hopefully play on Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons.
Williams was a limited participant for the first time at practice last Friday since suffering his Grade 2 hamstring strain and looked good during his pregame workout on Sunday. That’s not to say that he’s ready for a live game and four quarters of action against one of the better defenses in the league. There’s still a lot to be determined about Williams specifically over the next few days.
“He’s doing a great job progressing and we’ll see when we can make him available to help us win ball games,” Johnson told reporters on Monday. “But he’s itching to get back as soon as he can, which is a good thing. And when we get the green light, we’ll move forward from there.”
If Caleb Williams can’t return on Sunday, what’s next for the Bears at quarterback
Without Caleb Williams, the Bears went 2-1 over the last three weeks, which is still a favorable outcome for a three game stretch without your starting quarterback. Both wins came with a different quarterback with veteran Case Keenum beating the Philadelphia Eagles and Tyson Bagent beating the New York Jets.
On Sunday against the Packers, however, those two quarterbacks combined for five turnovers on the road with Bagent getting the start before eventually getting benched in the third quarter with the game well out of reach.
“We can’t put the ball in harm’s way like we did,” Johnson explained. “Those are things that we’ll get cleaned up here today and we’ll move on from them and learn from. I just thought as a whole, our pass game wasn’t clicking. We couldn’t get into a rhythm offensively much at all… Not a whole lot was going right.”
One can’t help but wonder if the results could have been differently had Keenum started the game. Bagent struggled taking what the defense was giving him and tried to forced to many passes while missing the wide open layups. The passes he did attempt were wildly inaccurate. It just wasn’t starting-level play and way different from the showing we saw from Keenum in Week 3 against the Eagles.
When asked who would take first-reps at practice on Wednesday if Williams isn’t able to fully participate, Johnson chose to leave that door open for the time being.
“We’re still working through that,” Johnson said. “No determination has been made in terms of what direction we’re going. There’s a lot of things that we’re assessing right now.”
The one thing the Bears can’t afford to do is rush Williams back or have Williams feel like he has to rush back to help this team. His long-term health is paramount in this situation and if he’s not ready, he’s not ready. And if that’s the case, Johnson will have to make the decision on which backup gives his team the best chance to win on Sunday.
