Not everyone carries offensive problems Trace back to Caleb Williams

The Bears have only themselves to blame for some of the problems they’ve encountered on offense, especially in the first few quarters.

With 10 points in the first quarter, they are second to last in the NFL in scoring during that stretch of games and offensive coordinator Shane Waldron continues to look for answers. The solution is to eliminate the negative plays — sacks or penalties — as they have left quarterback Caleb Williams too far to account for on third downs in the past two games.

“I think like the early part of the season where the negative plays or the second-and-long, third-and-long situations have really crept up on us in those games where we haven’t had a lot of success,” Waldron said. “Especially this past week where we’re in multiple second-and-10s leading to third-and-longs, generally those are scenarios you want to stay out of as an offense.

“When we go and play at a higher level, we know we get more runs called because we don’t have as many negative plays, we stay efficient with that balance, the marriage of the run and the pass and then the mindset of the completion plays come to life and you’re in second and short or you’re up in first and 10, third and short and can execute at a higher level.”

The Bears have allowed the second-worst sack percentage in the league at 3.5 per game. Only Cleveland (4.8) is worse.

In terms of pre-snap penalties, they are tied with Miami for the league lead in illegal formation violations with six for 30 yards. They have committed 15 false starts, which is two off the series lead. They also committed two illegal shift penalties.

The penalty and the sacks are intertwined, Waldron says. One can lead to the other. Both put pressure on Williams and the offense to make up lost ground and that gives the defense the edge, leading to even more penalties and sacks.

The offensive line should be where the blame goes, then?

“I know we all see sack numbers, and we all just want to put it on the offense,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “But there’s an element of receivers having to run the right routes. We have to be right where we’re supposed to be, especially if there’s a hot element to the play.

“Obviously, the O-line has to block it correctly. The running backs have to be in the right spot. The tight ends have to be aware of who’s coming and who’s not coming. The quarterback has to be on when it comes to flipping coverages and all that kind of stuff. So it’s a lot goes into it than just the offensive component.”

Then again, sometimes it’s up to Williams to wait too long to throw or scramble for a sack. He did that in the last game.

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“That’s the ultimate team stat right there because every one of those plays, there are times when it’s on the quarterback who gets the ball out (slowly),” Waldron said. “There are times when, if he gets red, go ahead and a toss is OK.

“And there are other times when a defensive scheme can hit home sooner than expected and you have to be able to play the next down (throw it away). I think, overall as an offense, the high number of sacks is something that we really have started to tighten up and obviously we’ve talked about every week, but as they accumulate, it’s a big goal for us to reduce that number, because it goes back to the second down, the third down, because of all the negative plays are sacks that affect a drive and expected score more than anything else. We’re working through all the different reasons there.”

Penalties make it easier to get sacks and this is a pretty late time in the season for an offense to repeatedly line up incorrectly or commit false starts. Waldron admits as much.

“I would say with the presnap penalty, those are issues that we have to continue to work to fix because they’ve been hanging around a little bit longer, obviously, than what we’re looking for right there,” Waldron said. “So, again, those are things we’ll address, we’ll talk through, always give the guys why and now it’s about going out there and executing.”

Twitter: BearsOnSi