Realistic Caleb Wlliams goals to target in second Chicago Bears season

It’s rather early for player projections.

It might be better first to see the Bears practicing together at OTAs or even their veterans voluntary minicamp the week of April 21.

They wouldn’t even have rookies chosen yet at that point but at least the veterans would be running plays together.

One can no sooner hold back this rolling tide of predictions and forecasts than expect football fans not to do their own first-round draft predictions. It’s happening now whether anyone likes it or not.

Former Chicago radio sports talk show host and current Fox talk show panelist Danny Parkins started the Bears rush on FS1’s Breakfast Ball with simple target points for Caleb Williams to hit this year.

In a few ways, his targets seem unrealistic. In others, way too low.

Sacking the Sack Number

The worst one by far is he has Williams’ sacked total at “below 50.”

Duh. It had better be below 50.

Try 40 or less. That was the midpoint in the league last year. There were 16 teams at 41 sacks allowed or more. If the Bears only aspire to the notion they need to be average on the offensive line as pass blockers, then less than 41must be the target, if not lower.

The Bears gave up 68 last year, so it’s easy to see why someone would target 50, but that 50 sacks last year would have been the seventh most allowed. That’s not much of an improvement.

Considering the Bears have given up 50 or more sacks four straight years, the defeatism surrounding this pass-blocking number is also easy to understand. But 40 sacks or less is not hard to achieve for decent offensive lines.

For crying out loud, they didn’t even allow 40 sacks when Mike Glennon began the season as their starting quarterback in 2017. There were probably many Bears fans who would have liked to see Glennon sacked 40 times just for the fun of it, but the Bears never gave up 40 or more sacks for any season when John Fox was their coach and they didn’t even have the slightest clue how to pass the ball or score points then.

Adding Joe Thuney, Drew Dalman and Jonah Jackson to the offensive line better bring that total down. It’s a lot of money to devote to better pass blocking. But getting this one number down, the sacks total, can do more to boost the Bears’ passing attack than just about anything. Adding a running game will do something similar for the passing game.

Sure, Williams tends to hold the ball long, right around 3.0 seconds. In year 2, with a better coaching staff and better blocking he should be able to get rid of it in time more often.

Jared Goff got rid of it in 2.68 seconds for the Lions last year, 10th fastest among starters, and that’s too fast. But just lowering it to 2.8 seconds would do wonders for stopping the pass rush and getting the ball in the hands of playmakers.

More realistic notions

Parkins’ other numbers are nine-plus wins, 65% or better completion percentage, 30-plus touchdowns and 4,000-plus yards.

The mere thought of a Bears quarterback hitting 4,000 yards might be too much for most fans to endure. They’d pass out if it occurred. Something close would be fine. Breaking Erik Kramer’s Bears record of 3,838 might be a better target. Jay Cutler never achieved this even though he annually flirted with it.

The 65% number is admirable and possible since Williams was at 62.5% last year but according to the average change for first-overall picks from Year 1 to Year 2, a number just below 65% is average. So 65% is a decent target number.

Hitting 30 touchdown passes is probably being a bit optimistic.