It’s good to be back to winning football, especially in a commanding way. For the first time in what feels like all season the Chicago Bears were solidly in the driver seat from gun to gun when the visiting Cleveland Browns came into town and suffered a 31-3 blow out.
The performance across all phases cannot be understated, the defense held the Cleveland offense to the 11th worst performance via DVOA since 1978, the offense racked up 21 first downs, 361 total yards of offense and 31 points against
a defense that was 2nd best in the league in EPA allowed (now 3rd) and a league leading 37.05% in success rate allowed.
And most importantly the offense breezed to a 28 point win, all this in conditions that saw a high of 8 degrees at kickoff.
It is in my opinion, given the conditions, and quality of defense faced, that this was one of Caleb Williams’ finest games as a professional, and it showcased everything this offense has been building up towards in 2025.
Yes, drops were still an issue, as Bears receivers drop 4 more passes this week, leaving untold yards and possible points on the field. But outside a small lull after half-time, the offense was crisp, moved the ball well and capitalized on the Browns mistakes often from start to finish.
And the best of all? The win put the Bears on the cusp of the playoffs.
A fantastic tidbit from the game Sunday was that with his 1,000th pass attempt on Sunday, Caleb Williams set an NFL record for the least amount of interceptions thrown for any quarterback in NFL history to attempt 1000 passes, throwing just 12 in that timespan.
It’s pretty incredible to be on the right side of the NFL record books when it comes to quarterback play as a Bears fan. While I had imagined a jump in interceptions on the season given the changes that comes with a more aggressive (and new) offense, Caleb is on pace to throw just 1 more interception than last year, while being on pace to increase his total touchdowns by 10, and total yards by over 200.
Overall this was exactly the type of game this team needed to get back on track to get ready for the Packers next week, let’s jump into stats, metrics and play breakdowns!
But first a quick note:
You’ll notice this week on Caleb’s scorecard a new row below the scores for the Halves/Game called Adjusted Game Score. This is something I’ve been looking to implement for some time, I just needed the proper dataset to do so. Averaging all the plays I’ve graded this season and last, I’ve come to find that on average a standard game will have 39 plays to grade.
The problem I sometimes run into is that some games these quarterbacks don’t hit that 39 play threshold, so their graded game score is artificially lowered due to that. The adjusted game score looks to correct that by figuring out that quarterbacks’ points per play on the season and multiplying it by however many plays needed to reach 39.
So in this scenario Caleb was 3 plays short of 39, so we take all his scores on the year before week 15 and add them together, resulting in 14.7, then take the total plays on the year before week 15 (548) and divide these two numbers to get .0268 points per play. We then take .0268 and multiply it by 3 to get .0804.
Finally we round up or down to the nearest 5, giving us .10 points to add to his score.
All quarterback and games will retroactively get this treatment if they don’t meet the 39 play threshold. For Caleb, 2 games will be affected by this: the Cowboys game, and the Saints game.
Benchmarks
(Totals and averages are all before week 15: Season totals are underlined, Season averages in Italics)
C/A: 249/431 (57.8%) | 19.2/33.2 (57.8%) | 17/36 (47.2%)
Yards: 2908 | 223.7 | 242
Touchdowns: 23 | 1.8 | 2
Turnovers: 7 | 0.5 | 0
QB at Fault Sacks: 11 | 0.8 | 2
aDOT: 8.9 | 11.2
Passer Rating: 87.2 | 112.5
True Passer Rating: 122.8 | 149.7
Time to Throw: 3.04s | 2.90s
Time to Pressure: 2.61s | 3.08s
Pressure Rate: 32.00% | 31.43%
On-Target Rate: 64.8% |84.0%
Poor Play Rate / Big Play Rate: 10.4% PPR / 7.7% BPR | 2.8% PPR / 8.3% BRP
Game Scorecard
The full grading sheet for each play can be found here.
Game Notes
- NFL Passer Rating / True Passer Rating / PFF Grade: 112.5 / 149.7 / 85.1
- The average passer rating in the 2025 season sits at 91.5 through week 15. His 112.5 NFL Passer Rating would be considered a very good game.
- A 149.7 TPR is just short of the Elite range, with 100 serving as the baseline for “Average.”
- On the PFF scale, a score of 80 or higher is Good. With a 85.1, Caleb Williams’ performance was a solidly good game, beginning to push into elite territory.
- Yes! Finally after weeks of the stars not aligning with production vs. tape, they finally do in week 15 against a top flight defense in the freezing cold, no less. With the elements (and a couple drops) playing a factor, it makes you really wonder what the ceiling on this start could have been.
- On-Target Throws: Season Average: 64.8% | Week 15 vs. Browns: 84.0%
- Reminder: Completion % ≠ On-Target %. On-target throws are only counted on aimed passes, so throw aways, spikes, and deflections at the line aren’t counted. And drops are counted as on-target.
- We are now 8 consecutive weeks of seeing his weekly On Target rate above his season average, with this weeks start setting a new season high.
- His On Target % over that time is 72.2%. This means that over this time frame nearly 3 out of every 4 aimed throws from Caleb has given his wide receiver a chance to haul in an fairly standard catch.
- Short-Level Passing (Behind LOS – 9 yards): 11/14 | 78.6% On-Target
- Deep-Level Passing (10–20+ yards): 10/11 | 91.0% On-Target
- Reminder: Completion % ≠ On-Target %. On-target throws are only counted on aimed passes, so throw aways, spikes, and deflections at the line aren’t counted. And drops are counted as on-target.
- 2.8% Poor Play Rate (turnover-worthy + poorly graded plays) against a 8.3% Big Play Rate (great + elite graded plays)
- Another week, another positive trend in the PPR vs. BPR metric. With both numbers improving upon season averages.
- Not to be outdone from last weeks 16.7% completion probability keyhole touchdown to Olamide Zaccheaus; for his 1 elite throw on the afternoon, Caleb hit DJ Moore in the back of the endzone for a touchdown that had just a 16.1% probability, on a throw many compared Joe Montana’s touchdown throw in the 1981 NFC Championship, simply known as “The Catch.”
- Another week, another positive trend in the PPR vs. BPR metric. With both numbers improving upon season averages.
- Time to Throw: Dropped down to below 3 seconds this week and hit 2.90 as we saw a good blend of play-action, structured throws, and extension when needed.
- Lights, Camera, Play-action: Caleb Williams put together the single best game out of play-action based of passer rating this season.
- Per PFF he completed 11 of 14 passes for 147 yards, and 2 touchdowns. This also included 2 big time throws.
- On the season he is the 8th best graded QB under play-action with a 83.0 grade, throwing for the 5th most yards and 2nd highest play-action rate in the league, with 35.5% of his drop backs coming out of play-action. Only Matthew Stafford runs more. And this is all year one of learning how to play under center!
- Bigs Plays, No Whammies: The increase in both volume and efficiency in big plays from Caleb cannot be understated. Per PFF he has had only 2 games this season where he didn’t have a big time throw compared to 6 total last year, and his big time throw rate has seen a increased of 15.4% this year, from 3.9% to 4.5%.
- This change is also reflected in my personal grading. Caleb had a big play rate of 6.2% in 2024, compared to a 7.7% rate in 2025, an increase of 24.2%.
Play Reviews
The plays we’ll be reviewing are presented in the order they occurred in the game.
Analysis: We start with an early play on a design I really like. Our underneath routes have DJ Moore and Olamide Zaccheaus running a quasi-Mesh, with DJ providing a small chip to Myles Garrett (a theme throughout the game). Luther Burden is running a clear route dragging his defender up-field with a Go route. Colston Loveland is running a Wheel release around Zaccheaus, which sets a nice natural rub to help shed his defender.
With the Browns in press man coverage this is like shooting fish in a barrel, Zaccheaus does a great job hesitating his route allowing Loveland to get around him, once Loveland’s defender collides with Zaccheaus it’s easy pitch and catch, Williams delivers an accurate and on time ball allowing Loveland an easy catch to turn up-field and pick up plenty of YAC.
A simple, legal play design that the Bears finally don’t get dinged for.
Analysis: The second play we’re looking at is the culminating play of the drive that was bolstered by the 24 yard completion to Loveland previously.
Caleb sends Burden in motion towards the top of the screen alerting the quarterback that the Browns are in man coverage. Cole Kmet will provide a chip on Myles Garrett and release into the flat, while DJ Moore and Zaccheaus will run a goal line Mesh with Burden following Moore with a trail route.
This play works so well because there’s no over the top help to help diagnose the Mesh attack point. On top of that DJ does a great job creating separation from his defender. All that’s left to do is for Caleb to loft an accurate ball towards the back left pylon, and with the perfect amount of touch and placement he drops it into Moore’s lap for an easy 6 points capping an 80 yards drive, putting the Bears up 14-0.
Analysis: Play number 3 features one of my favorite skills that Caleb Williams has shown throughout the season: ANTICIPATION!!
First and foremost, watch Loveland at the top of the screen, he absolutely de-cleats Myles Garrett on the chip block. Kyle Monangai also gets his hat on a defender in a release chip.
At the bottom of the screen the Bears are running a post-in concept, with Burden running the deep post, Zaccheaus running the clearing Go route, and DJ Moore running the deep dig/in behind them. Both Burden and Zaccheaus’ routes are designed to create space for the throw to DJ, and even Loveland’s underneath route opens up the throwing window.
With the intermediate defender breaking towards Loveland, Caleb hitches and fires to a spot when DJ Moore is at the 40 outside the numbers, the ball gets on him at the 48 at about the midway point of the hashes and numbers, showcasing great anticipation and accuracy into the deep level of the field.
These types of throws have really elevated this offense, and Caleb’s game.
Analysis: Play number 4 is a missed opportunity to keep the drive alive on 4th down.
DJ Moore and Oz are running a switch at the top of the screen while Burden and Swift (who chips Garrett, surprise!) run an underneath mesh. The Browns call a good defense to answer the Bears offense. Early it looks like Caleb has a window open to Swift, it would be a contested throw but with a tad bit of anticipation he should be able to get the ball to Swift as he settles, but his read looks to start with Burden running the mid crossing route.
By the time he gets off that, and diagnoses the coverage on the switch at the top, Swift is well covered up. Unfortunately he never takes a peak at his tight end Cole Kmet leaking out wide open into the flat, an easy throw that could have extended the drive. Time runs out as Caleb attempts to escape the pocket, but is brought down for a drive ending sack.
Due to the time it takes pressure to effect Caleb (3.71s) and the fact that the sack resulted in a turnover on downs, the play was graded “Bad” and a QB at fault sack.
Analysis: On to the play we’ve all seen probably a thousand times by now, and rightfully so, the throw is absolutely special and one of the best I’ve ever seen from a Bears quarterback.
It’s a simple play-action boot that’s supposed to give Caleb an easy look to Loveland running the Corner route with Oz running the Cross into the mid level in case Loveland isn’t open.
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately in this case, Loveland is gummed up and slow to get to his spot, and Oz is covered well due to the Browns doing a great job with zone discipline. There’s really just 1 place to go with this, DJ on the backside Deep Post.
While fading away from his target, Caleb uncorks an absolute missile 35+ air yards just over the hand of an outstretched defender, finding DJ Moore in the back of the endzone for a touchdown that can only be labeled as the elite of the elite. Don’t let anyone fool you on this, this isn’t luck, the ball was placed in a spot that either results in DJ hauling the ball in, or the ball ends up out of the back of the endzone.
Truly an incredible play.
Analysis: Final play we will look at and it’s a missed kill shot.
I like the call trying to put the final nail in the coffin. I also like the design of the play, as it harkens back to a play the Bears ran earlier in the game, that netted them 19 yards on a nicely lofted ball from Caleb to Loveland on a corner route.
Quick props to Kyle Monangai for sticking his helmet into an edge rusher on the chip and completely killing his momentum.
The play is designed to prey on the Browns tendencies here, the defenders have seen a similar concept earlier in the game, DJ Moore ran a deep dig on that play to open up the area overtop to get the ball to Loveland on a Corner.
On this play though, DJ fakes the deep dig, Caleb pump fakes causing DJ’s defender to bite on the dig, then DJ cuts back up-field, getting the defender to flip his hips in pursuit. Caleb release a throw that unfortunately does not get to it’s proper mark. While obviously underthrown by quiet a bit it is also thrown towards DJ’s inside shoulder, so even if the ball had enough juice on it, it is put in the area of the defender who could easily make a play on it due to bad placement.
A good ball here is thrown towards the back pylon, leading DJ through the endzone. This is a throw Caleb can 100% make with his arm talent, and it actually surprised me that it was thrown short.
Summary
His final scores of 1st Half (4.35) / 2nd Half (0.80) / Game (5.25) give him a solid “Good” game grade for week 15.
Of the seven quarterbacks I grade Williams placed 1st this week. And for the 3rd week in a row all quarterbacks graded saw Average or better scores for their respective starts. December continues to be a month of very solid quarterbacking.
Weekly scores of every QB I grade can be found here.
With their own fate resting squarely in their own hands, the Bears will stay home to host a banged up, travel weary Green Bay Packers on short week Saturday night. A win would all but lock up the division title, and I for one can say that this is the most excited I’ve been for a Bears football game since 2018, when the Bears locked up the division against these very same Packers at home.
Here’s to the Bears taking care of business at home, and always, Bear Down, and we will see you next week!
Gary Baugher Jr. is a rookie contributor to WCG, bringing football insight backed by over 16 years of experience in organized football and more than 30 years as a passionate fan of the game. You can follow him on Twitter at @iamcogs.
