REACTION: Caleb Williams has 'phenomenal' preseason debut against Bills | Bernstein & Holmes

it was a good day for Caleb Williams bottom line full stop phenomenal day for him full stop it was a good day he looked in command there weren't any real problems as far as like getting plays off he looked comfortable under Center when they put him under Center he made wow throws there were a couple of throws that you go careful but let him take risk if he's going to if he he needs to figure out what he can and can't get away with why not do it in preseason games and here's the thing that I thought was interesting about it which I think should make Bears fans feel good about it buffalo's defense wasn't exotic but it wasn't vanilla either they sent people I mean it's it's basic blitzing stuff but it wasn't like we're going to sit back in a shell and that's going to be it they tried some stuff and the bears were able to for the most most part handle it with their first unit so I think as a first step it's a wonderful first step for Caleb Williams and I think that there's stuff to still teach him that that if you're Matt Eber you can still walk into the meeting and go hey um don't run after you throw the ball like you're a blocker cuz that's a way to get your ass popped don't do that please the two things please don't make yourself a Target and don't try to make a tackle Remember When J Cutler broke his thumb trying to tackle the Chargers that was probably the best Bears team that Jay had yep and yep then you ended up with really what were they seven and two when he got hurt and then it was just a disaster yep so you're absolutely right about that that maybe you're like hey in practice like look at me you know how many times in college did we see Justin Fields running alongside a wide receiver or a running back and actually outpacing him yes when he was just sort of swiveling his head to be that sort of like fighter escort but in the pros that gives everybody a chance to get a legal clean free shot at you yes so don't do that right it's bad I'm glad that he didn't get hit and he did some really cool stuff screenplay to Swift was really cool the the doing the high low on the boot lots of leveled reads a lot a lot of half field short medium long and we'll talk to Tim Jenkins about this stuff throughout the season hell yeah and I I love how Tim would phrase it on those leveled reads he would always say you got to you got to look deep that that's the one you really want what do he say you got to ask the prettiest girl to the dance so what if she says no and seeing where Caleb's eyes are on on those they're they're allowing him to see this now at that speed at that level to make some of those decisions it was a really good that that particular play was a really good indication of the the concept of touchdown to checkdown like how he's processing it and thinking like okay I'm GNA wait like a half a beat more to make that throw but I know I've got the flat I know I have the secondary route if I need it but I'm going to make the Ro down the field what it's also done there was a play the Bears ran with Justin fields that first hit in the preseason which is that to one side and a tight end leaking and sneaking into a sail route on the other side of the field where you get all the flow going one way and sometimes they'll lose that tight end so I'm interested to see what the variations are when they start to show that for real would would go ahead no no you got it you were going to do something Bears training camp coverage is presented by Chevy drives chicago.com and the number one draft pick Chevy Silverado the official truck partner of the Chicago Bears would you like to hear from Matt eberl I would Matt eflu spoke after the game about how the offense looked just overall we really wanted just uh to take this opportunity to get you know the process and have a really good plan in place for the Reps we wanted to get obviously a good job on third down you know completing that pass to DJ and then making some some explosives there and and getting into the Red Zone and and we stalled out there and it was fourth and four I believe at the end so we end up kicking it but uh I thought overall in the pocket you know protected the football had a consistent performance and uh now we got to learn from this and get better you know what we did well is is very good and what we need to improve on and I told the team in the locker room there that we got to level up you know I challenged them last week to be able to get better as a whole group individually you know and collectively and and they did that and we had to do it again because we don't have time not not to improve so there's got to be a sense of urgency in our building yeah the biggest game was the the screen to to Swift what did you see from Caleb on that plan really from the whole unit and getting that thing to work yeah just his ability that we seen you know you saw you guys have seen it practice his ability to get the ball of his hands really fast when pressure arrives when that happens sometimes on those screens so I thought he did a really nice job you know getting the ball to him cleanly and obviously Swift is a guy that can really is dynamic and really really got a lot of good speed and he's just got to kick his feet up at the end there when you guys have a play action he will right on the depot his ability to pump F to buy himself a second and throw a strike dead run I know you've seen it in practice singing in a game what did you feel when you saw it no I thought it was really good he did a nice job of of coming out of the fake with speed which you need to do and the guys ran their route depths correctly and they ran with speed too so they they you know they stayed open a lot of times when you're doing those Keepers you know you're running away from Leverage on defense so you you really got to maintain that speed and Cole did that on that play and then you know Caleb did a nice job of striking it in there you have a quarterback looking downfield doing that is that something that's taught or kind of inherent no that's taught that's the read yeah he he did a nice job of going through his progression there b wasn't out there today is he dealing with an injury issue Bas no it's just something that he's had you know uh from before but he's fine he'll be fine uh looking in this week so like I said it's a big week we'll have tomorrow will be a walkthrough uh setting to get the corrections get cleaned up really do a good looking at this game and uh like I said learning from it then the players will have a day off to get ready for this big week we have we have a couple practices and then we have the joint practice on Thursday and then a walk through again on Friday then another game so it's going to be a big week for us to level up Matt what impressed you about Caleb on third down I think the first completion of DJ was third down on the third and N yeah the PO in the pocket be able to ride the pocket there keep two hands on it when he was in the pocket and then throw a strike really good job by DJ coming back to the football too on that one so it was uh it was both in the protection was solid now would you thing about kale on that play too just you you talked about the way he battles back in Camp but you know to have that first play obviously didn't go as well as he would have wanted to be that third and long for him to kind of have the Poise to just make the play yeah I think it's good for him you know it's the fruits of his labor he's been working his tail off for 15 practices you know and then you know even before that all through the summer so it's good to be able to say hey all this drill work all the things that I've been doing it's paying off and I can see the improvements we're going to look at this tape and then look back and say hey what can I learn from this you know there's a lot of things that we can learn from this process of getting these reps as he does in practice when he's going against the one defense B around the edge a couple times but also up the middle which is a whole different world for him what do you think of his performance in his first game I thought it was positive I mean we all saw it it was positive you know he did a nice job of really getting North and you saw his his you know he's got really good lean mass and he's a physical player and you can see him really deting that you know the the tackles to fall forward for those positive yards to really gain those hidden yards on our on our in our favor so you know he's been good back there you talked about this being week to we thing y you going to give it another week yeah I'll talk to Chad and and Shane and we'll we'll get together here in the next couple days and we'll figure that out going into the Tuesday practice I know you guys feel like you're having a good camp but is there a different level of excitement when you see Caleb go do something in a game setting just is there a proof of concept yeah there's certainly positivity there and we're not going to squash that you know I just I do feel that we have a lot of work to do you know we have a lot of things to accomplish as a football team not just Caleb you know we all got to play good around him so it's important that we keep improving before that first game a very measured approach for Matt eberflus which is what I would expect like I wouldn't think that any coach would look at look at the performance and just be like oh everything was great I think that he made mention of all the things that were good and says oh we can be better because you can like and and I think that that's one of the things that Caleb will try and do I mean later on in the show we'll talk about it like there pretty much isn't a place if you have a rookie quarterback in the NFL that you don't feel great about that guy this week now that that might mean that this is a great rookie quarterback class or it could mean it's the first real preseason game or it's probably noise and not signal yeah is all it is it it's a data point for all involved that's right and I as excited as we get and as content starved as we can be it's important to remember that now I want to point out something real quick that Matt eberl did before his press conference began as people were filing in and it may seem like a little thing but it's a really nice and professional thing that matd bfo did really what taleb in the office was able to do um just hold hold on a second oh I get wa from my local guys right much appreci cause a riot good okay go ahead sir I'm sorry he held the press conference he wouldn't answer a question until the local Chicago media showed up and he said local guys and I'm sure he was using guys to mean unisex men and women but that that's awesome I age it is a little thing and I don't think it was self-serving as it's good politics it's good PR but for him to say you know we're not because he doesn't when he says there' be a riot he's he's he understands also that it's just the right thing to do those are the people who are there every day those are the people who in effect are most important to him and goodlooking out there that that goes a long way when a coach cares about something like that because a lot of coaches don't it is very very true so shout out to flu