Last week, the Chicago Bears beat the Cleveland Browns in a pointless game that revealed no new information, unless you were unaware of just how bad Shadeur Sanders is. However, one important thing did happen. Rome Odunze, the Bears’ best big play receiver, was already nursing an injured foot; in the frigid pre-game warmup he exacerbated that injury and on Thursday the Bears ruled him out for Saturday’s rematch with the Green Bay Packers. Luther Burden III, Chicago’s impressive rookie receiver, also
was ruled out with an injured ankle, while running back D’Andre Swift popped up on the injury report mid-week with a groin strain and is questionable.
It’s worth monitoring all of these injuries because they directly impact the effectiveness of the worst Bears player, Caleb Williams. If you think it’s unfair to call Williams the worst player on the team, I assure you it is not. Williams is dead last in the league in completion percentage despite a great offensive line, a powerful running attack, and a group of good skill position players. That number is absolutely not a fluke as he is also dead last in Next Gen Stat’s Completion Percentage Over Expected (CPOE) statistic, with an enormous gap between him and the Vikings’ J.J. McCarthy. Yes, Williams does have a few positives, but generally speaking, he is BY FAR the least accurate quarterback in professional football.
Let’s acknowledge those positives. Williams does average a robust 11.8 yards per completion, which ranks seventh among qualifying quarterbacks, but he earned that rank despite a less impressive 5.9 air yards per completion. Whenever you see a robust yards per completion number with a low Air Yards/ADOT number, the gap between the two is necessarily filled by Yards After Catch (YAC), and it’s important to understand the importance of YAC. Generally speaking, YAC is a receiver and schematic statistic, not a quarterback statistic. Kyle Shanahan and the 49ers have been juicing the numbers of mediocre quarterbacks for years by virtue of outstanding playcalling and YAC maestros like George Kittle and Deebo Samuel. Bears head coach Ben Johnson is an outstanding play designer on par with Shanahan, but the Bears may not have their stable of YAC monsters available on Saturday. And if they don’t, Caleb Williams production may completely dry up.
Caleb’s completion percentage on the season is 58%. The Bears’ team leader in YAC and YAC/Reception is Swift, who has caught 70.7% of his passes with an average of 11.2 YAC per catch. Yes, that means Swift is generally catching the ball behind the line of scrimmage, and still producing something close to a first down. The highest YAC from any receiver on the team comes from Luther Burden, who has caught an incredible-for-Caleb 76.6% of his targets for 13.3 yards per reception, 7.1 of which come after the catch. Burden didn’t really start getting regular targets until November 9th, but after never eclipsing four targets in a game prior to that date, he’s had at least five targets in every game after. The only Bears’ loss in that time came against the Packers, and Burden has been one of the single most valuable receivers in football during that time.
With Burden out, a potential Swift absence would absolutely crush the Bears’ passing game efficiency. Sometimes you can counteract a decline in efficiency with big plays, but here the injury to Rome Odunze helps take that away as well. Odunze averages 15 yards per completion as the only real deep threat on the team. He’s not efficient, and has caught only 45.6% of his passes (though some of that is due to Caleb’s accuracy on passes that aren’t three yards behind the line of scrimmage to his running back), but if they need a big play, he’s their best option.
If none of these players can go, the Bears have a serious problem. While they have some depth behind Odunze, Swift, and Burden, each backup also brings significant downgrade. Kyle Monangai can replace Swift on the ground as the efficient thunder to Swift’s lightning, but in the passing game he’s a disaster with four drops on just 18 targets. Likely slot replacement Olamide Zaccheus has a drops problem of his own, with five on the season, and he’s also not the YAC provider that Burden is, averaging just 3.5 per reception.
DJ Moore is the most interesting remaining receiver, as he was once one of the NFL’s best. Just two seasons ago in his first year in Chicago he caught 96 balls for 1,364 yards and 8 scores, but since then his production has really tapered off. Last season his Y/R dropped to a career low 9.9 yards as the Bears tried to generate easy throws for then rookie Williams. Moore’s ADOT was just 7.3 as he ran mostly screens and other simple concepts for his young quarterback. This season his ADOT has returned to normal at 12.2, but his production has not. His contested catch percentage is up at a career high level, meaning he is not getting as open, and his yards per route run is significantly below Odunze’s despite a higher catch percentage (though Moore’s catch rate is still under 50%). Moore isn’t a bad receiver, but he’s a shadow of what he was, and he doesn’t adequately replace what Odunze brings to the table.
The Bears’ offense does its best to hide its quarterback through strong running, and through simple throws to pro-YAC receivers. Despite ranking dead last in CPOE and 28th in success rate, Caleb still ranks a non-terrible 21st in EPA per play due to his running and the YAC provided by his targets. Maybe Swift will play, but with Odunze and Burden already ruled out, things could get ugly on a cold Chicago night — even against a Packers team that’s even more beaten up than they are.
