Caleb Williams Wildcard QB Grade: Bears vs. Packers
- IamCogs
- Feb 9
- 11 min read
The 2006 NFC Championship aside, this may have been the most important, and meaningful win in all my years as a Bears fan.
I won’t sugarcoat it, about midway through the 3rd quarter even I was muttering “same old Bears”, me, one of the most glass half full fans in the world. But even then, the Chicago Bears knew the game wasn’t over, and they had a strong message in store for us fans, the Green Bay Packers, and the NFL landscape:
This isn’t the same old Bears.
They did so in historic fashion, scoring 25 points in the 4th quarter to stun the Green Bay Packers 31-27, in what was the the 3rd largest comeback in Bears history (18), largest playoff comeback in Bears history, and largest blown lead in Packers playoff history.
A portion of the credit should be handed to the defense, who after a very rough first half, allowed just 6 points in the 2nd half by primarily blitzing and playing zone coverages after shifting from mostly man in the 1st half. This allowed quarterback Caleb Williams to deliver a 4th quarter of a lifetime. While saw 3 consecutive touchdown drives, where he amassed 195 total yards, 2 touchdowns, no turnovers and a 110.0 passer rating. Leading the Bears to their 7th come from behind victory on the season, and NFL record for quarterbacks under the age of 25. This run has only continued to cement his legacy as one of the leagues most clutch quarterback.
His 361 yards of passing set a Bears franchise record for passing yards in a post-season game. (And that number could have easily been north of 400 if not for some untimely drops.)
The game saw a laundry list of accomplishments, in addition to ones already mentioned, with the win the Bears became just the 4th team in NFL history to win a playoff game when trailing by 15 or more points entering the 4th quarter. It is also the 4th largest playoff comeback in NFL history, and they became only the 3rd team in NFL history to score at least 25 points in the 4th quarter of a playoff game in NFL history.
The fact that this all came against the Green Bay Packers, that may very well be the sweetest cherry on top.
The nail in the coffin came from one of the best examples of longform play calling.
None of that happens, of course, if Caleb doesn’t make on of the most important throws in his young career, and perhaps, one of the most important throws in Bears history.
Consider the context: 4th and 8 (by the way how AWESOME is it that we now have our own 4th and 8 play to hold over the Packers heads) your season on the line in the NFL playoffs, pressure baring down, rolling to your left, throwing on the run, in the air, ~37 air yards down field to a spot surrounded by 4 defenders and absolute dotting it, all against your biggest rival on the primetime stage.
It doesn’t get much better than that.
Then again, I’ve probably said that 3 or 4 times this season with throws Caleb Williams has made. But maybe it’s time to start listening to QB1 himself. “We’re built for this.”
Let’s get into some metrics and then, breakdown some plays!
Benchmarks
(Totals and averages are all before the Wildcard round, Season totals are underlined, Season averages in Italics)
C/A: 330/568 (58.1%) | 19.4/33.4 (58.1%) | 24/48 (50.0%)
Yards: 3942 | 233.9 | 361
Touchdowns: 31 | 1.8 | 2
Turnovers: 8 | 0.5 | 2
QB at Fault Sacks: 14 | 0.8 | 1
ADOT: 9.0 | 11.5
Passer Rating: 90.4 | 71.6
True Passer Rating: 125.8 | 118.1
Time to Throw: 3.00s | 3.05s
Time to Pressure: 2.67s | 3.19s
Pressure Rate: 30.84% | 20.75%
On-Target Rate: 67.6% | 69.0%
Poor Play Rate / Big Play Rate: 9.0% PPR / 7.6% BPR | 11.1% PPR / 13.0% BRP
Game Scorecard
The full grading sheet for each play can be found here.
Game Notes
NFL Passer Rating / True Passer Rating / PFF Grade: 71.6 / 118.1 /77.3
The average passer rating in the 2025 season sits at 91.4 for the 2025 NFL regular season. His 71.6 NFL Passer Rating would be considered a below average game.
A 118.1 TPR is a high end Above Average game, with 100 serving as the baseline for “Average.”
Interestingly, due to the built in penalty due to completing under 55% of his passes, his TPR takes a bit of a hit here. If 3 of the drops were held on to, his TPR jumps to 140.4 (not including any additional yards picked up from those drops.) I feel this number best represents his game overall from Saturday.
On the PFF scale, a score of 70 or higher is considered an Above Average game. With a 77.3 PFF Score, Caleb Williams’ performance was graded as above average, beginning to push into Good.
Oddly, at one point during the week PFF had Caleb Williams with 7 big time throws for the game, but later dropped it to 6, impacting his score by roughly 1.5 points. My own grading had him for what would be the equivalent of 7 big time throws. I tried to reach out to PFF directly for clarification, however they never responded.
On-Target Throws: Season Average: 67.6% | Wildcard vs. Packers: 69.0%
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.
Short-Level Passing (Behind LOS – 9 yards): 17/22 | 77.3% On-Target
Deep-Level Passing (10–20+ yards): 12/20 | 60.0% On-Target
Not a bad number overall in his playoff debut, with 4 drops, 1 batted ball, and 2 throwaways making his raw completion look worse than it is.
While still under the league average mark of 74.9%, it’s still a trending marked improvement from Caleb. I do believe he will be able to play around league average in on target throwing, but with the style of offense the Bears run, this is more than an acceptable mark.
Think of the NBA, and how the game is played there now. Shooting 40% from 3 is better than 50% from 2. That’s the style of this Bears offense. Explosives over efficiency.
PPR/BPR: 11.1% Poor Play Rate (poor + turnover worthy graded plays) against a 13.0% Big Play Rate (great + elite graded plays)
With a 13.0% big play rate, this marks his 3rd highest mark of the season, behind only the Giants game (20.8%) and the Dallas game (14.3%), and unlike those two games, the entirety of big plays this week came in the second half.
His inflated PPR came off the back off mid to deep level inaccuracy, and while he did throw 2 interceptions, I graded neither of them as turnover worthy, as the first was a clear mistake by Luther Burden in not running a Deep In, and the second was off the back of a desperation 4th down heave that wouldn’t have happened unless DJ Moore didn’t slip on his route (we’ll break that play down further.)
Time to Throw: His time to throw this week clocked in at 3.05 seconds, which is just about his charted season average (3.00s). For the most part the Bears have been consistent with their ability to attack defenses in the intermediate and deep levels, which require longer time for the routes to develop. 22 of Caleb’s 48 aimed attempts went beyond 10 yards.
Iceman Cometh: We’ve hit on a lot of records and milestones created from this game, but here’s another one for good measure. Caleb Williams set the record for most passing yards with a win probability under 50% in a playoff victory, with 349 yards. When the game is in it’s dire stages, Williams is at his best.
Big Stage, Big Plays: Okay maybe one final record. In his first playoff performance, Caleb Williams had the most explosive plays in a half in NFL history with 11. For context, an explosive play is a play that goes for 20+ yards.
Play Reviews
The plays we’ll be reviewing are presented in the order they occurred in the game.
Analysis: Our first play comes early, it’s Caleb’s first incompletion on the day. Cole Kmet motions to the bottom of the formation, the defense shifts indicating some sort of zone coverage, post snap we have what looks like Cover 3 match, and the Bears are essentially running double Verts to the bottom side and Rome Odunze running the Deep In at the top.
From the snap Caleb is essentially wanting to go Loveland’s way, he has a good matchup with the linebacker Isiah McDuffie on him, he begins his route towards the sideline, then cuts back towards the middle of the field, flipping the linebackers hips, but McDuffie slows Loveland down just a bit with an arm (since it’s within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage it’s a legal move if the ball has yet to be thrown) which effects the timing of the play a bit.
But the release of the ball and where it travels and lands tells me this ball just got away from Caleb, even without getting slowed up a bit the ball is sailed, and would have given Loveland little chance. Due to the severity of the miss, this play is graded as Poor, but nothing wrong in trying to get your fantastic rookie tight end some early looks.
Analysis: Now, how about we take a look at a good ball for Loveland (and there were quite a few of those on Saturday!)
The pre-snap motion once again helps Caleb diagnose the defense, giving him a clear indication of some sort of Zone coverage, with that in mind Loveland’s Seam route attacks zone well if Caleb can use his eyes to influence the underneath defender to create a throwing window to get the ball pass the intermediate defenders. And he does just that with a sudden head snap towards the middle of the field, causing linebacker Edgerrin Cooper to overreact to the right, opening the throwing window to Loveland.
Caleb rips the ball to him, on target allowing Loveland to secure the ball and work for a few extra yards after catch. It’s a simple play made even easier by manipulating the defense and taking advantage immediate of that manipulation.
Analysis: We move on to the second half, in it’s opening drive. And no surprise we’re hitting Colston Loveland once more.
Ben Johnson clearly saw something with the Packers defense in the second half as he spammed the Sail concept to Loveland more than a handful of times. As a quick reminder a Sail concept generally see’s 2-3 receivers on any given side of the field, at it’s most basic you will have a receiver running a Go route to clear out the underneath Corner/Out route, in concepts that contain a third option they are usually underneath running a Flat route, it’s designed to attack the hole between an underneath and over the top defender.
Caleb navigates backside pressure, stepping up into the pocket and begins his delivery as Loveland is making his break towards the sideline, he places the ball perfectly into the deep portion of the field, hitting Loveland for a gain of 29. This was the first of many 20+ yard completions in the second half, and come right off the heels of a drop by Loveland.
I’m a huge fan of picking a player up by showing him the confidence to go back to them after, and it pays off here.
Analysis: The next play I wanted to bring up was the second interception. I think the first one where Luther Burden doesn’t run the correct route was covered a lot, but I feel like interception #2 didn’t see as much coverage.
It’s worth noting, that I graded both interceptions this week as Ungraded and not turnover worthy, we’ll dive into why on this play.
The play design from the get go seems to be a play intended to go to DJ Moore. After a quick play-action fake, DJ runs what should have been a Zig route. A Zig route is a route that starts off looking like a Slant, then the receiver breaks off the route after the defender commits to the Slant by planting his foot and breaking laterally to the line of scrimmage the opposite direction of the initial Slant.
The defender, Keisean Nixon is toast on this one, as he over commits to the Slant, BUT, unfortunately, DJ slips, taking him completely out of the play. Colston Loveland is also a non-factor in the play as he too slips, and with a defender barring down on him his only real option is throwing up a prayer on 4th down and hoping something works.
Unfortunately it doesn’t. But this is exactly why not all interceptions are made equal, if you watch this play, what other options do you have other than throwing up a prayer?
Analysis: Now on to the throw that changed it all for us.
Our own 4th and 8.
The Bears come out with DJ Moore, Luther Burden and Rome Odunze in a trip set at the top of the screen, with both Loveland and Monangai flanking the line leaving Caleb in an empty set.
The Bears are running a Flood concept, with DJ running the clear Go, Odunze running the Over and Burden running the Stick towards the middle of the field. In my opinion, it’s all designed to hit Loveland as the late leaking Flat route for a pretty easy first down, especially with a blitz coming. But that pressure gets Caleb off his spot, forcing him to escape the pocket away from Loveland’s side.
I want to note this is a great job by Rome on continuing his Over route, without it this play isn’t possible. He notices his QB scrambling to the left side of the field and continues his path with him. While rolling out to his left, Caleb uncorks a ball to a spot on the field where only Rome can haul it in, 4 Packers defenders around the throw have absolutely no shot on making a play on the ball.
i gushed about this throw earlier, but I truly believe that this is one of the best throws ever made by a Bears quarterback.
Analysis: The last throw we’ll be looking at is the game winning throw, and there’s a lot to love about it. There will be two plays in this clip, the first play that came in the 1st quarter to set up the touchdown, and the touchdown throw itself.
It’s a play design the Bears ran near the start of the game, with a trips bunch at the bottom of the screen. In the first quarter Caleb fired this ball to Luther Burden, who did Burden things and picked up 12 yards and moved the chains on 3rd and 8.
The Bears give a similar look in this scenario, 1st and 10 with 1:48 left to play, and it’s a perfect time for it. The Packers are on their heels, expecting the Bears to run some clock with quick, easy completions, or running the ball. Upon the snap both DJ Moore and Colston Loveland sell that they are blocking down, while Burden fakes up field then steps back like he was fielding a screen.
Selling the play even further has Darnell Wright anchored on the left side of the line, and peeling off the line post snap to set up a screen.
DJ, however, continues up field, blowing past his defender who bit hard on the play fake, Caleb pumps towards Luther and then throws a perfect ball to DJ, who is wide open down the sideline for the score.
Longform, meaningful play calling is such a vastly underrated, or at least, not commonly talked about asset for elite coaching. And with the game on the line it shows up in a big way for the Bears.
I also absolutely love Luther Burden celebrating the touchdown before the ball even gets to DJ.
Summary
His final scores of the Wildcard round of 1st Half (-0.40) / 2nd Half (2.80) / Game (2.40) make this a solid Above Average game.
His 2nd half saw 7 throws that were charted as big plays in my grading, 1 of which being a drop. The remaining 6 throws all went for 20+ yards. On those throws he went 6 for 6, for 149 yards, 1 touchdown, a perfect 158.3 Passer Rating, and an amazing 364.0 True Passer Rating.
The Bears will once against play host, as the Los Angeles Rams travel to Chicago to take on the Bears on Sunday night, with kickoff temperatures slated to be in the single digits and wind chill looking to be in the negatives, this writing is hoping mother nature gives us an assist against one of the best teams in the NFC.
As always, Bear Down, and we will see you back here next week, hopefully celebrating moving on to the NFC Championship!
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