“Charlie Wilson’s War” is a criminally underrated movie. It’s about the CIA funding the Mujahideen in Afghanistan; it’s so absurd, it has to be true. Spoiler alert – it didn’t end well!
Well, one scene specifically is cinematic magic in the hands of the late great Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
This is how I feel about the Caleb Williams’ journey.
Rookie year was up and down as Caleb definitely held on to the ball for too long resulting in a whopping 68 sacks [3rd most all time], but he did steer Bears to some late-time heroics including defeating GB in the finale.
Nevertheless, the whole fiasco of going through 3 different OCs and Flus mid-season firing made it impossible to objectively evaluate.
Up and down. Up and down.
“We’ll see.”
2025. First game he essentially gets outplayed by a raw JJ McCarthy. Then crushed by the Lions.
He sucks!
“We’ll see.”
Later Caleb goes off on toothless Dallas.
He’s great!
“We’ll see.”
Tyler Huntley comes off the Practice Squad and outduels him.
Heck, often this rollercoaster spins us through loops in a single game.
Bear games should come with the same warning: do not ride if you have a heart condition or abnormal blood pressure.
Jaxson Dart, a rook on an awful team with a walking-dead HC, looked better than Caleb. Blame drops, BJ, wind, Tall Whites…don’t matter, Dart still looked sharper passing and running than Caleb [Flacco didn’t look too shabby in comparison either].
Then Comeback Caleb dons his cape, and we know the rest.
So where does that leave us?
“We’ll see.”
One thing is certain: through 10 weeks, the Bears have played some of the softest defenses.
Jared@CinnamonJared
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The bears strength of schedule is .351 (next closest is Buffalo at .407) and their strength of victory is .272 (next closest is the jets at .278)
Both easiest in the entire league
Our very own Zombie posted this in-depth commentary:
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I know we’re all excited about being relevant this “late” in a season. Perhaps some perspective?
Here are the records of Bears opponents thus far, not including the games against the Bears.
The teams that beat the Bears
Detroit: 5-3
Minnesota: 3-5
Baltimore: 3-5
Aggregate: 11-13 (.458)
Teams the Bears beat:
Cowboys: 3-4-1
Bengals: 3-5
Commanders: 3-6
Raiders: 2-6
Saints: 2-7
Giants: 2-7
Aggregate: 15-35-1 (.304)
Grand aggregate: .353
In other words, bottom feeding. If you add the Bears games, the winning percentage of the opponents is 29-54-1, a mighty .351.
Of course, you can only play who is on the schedule.
But, clearly we ain’t done nothin’ yet.
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Zombie is not alone. Twitter is brimming with [illiterate] doomers:
Needless to say, the future SOS doesn’t get easier.
“Front-runners” is a word floating around the Bears like Drakkar Noir at a gaudy discotheque.
The other standard ‘slander’ on Caleb is that he wouldn’t need to be Captain Comeback if he actually played well for the other 3 QTRs.
Or that despite the D spotting him 3 extra possessions, he still barely beats horrendous defenses.
Common counters – Caleb only in his sophomore season, new to BJ-system, LT is some Canadian walk-on, he’s cut down his sack rate from 10.8 to 4.6 , unfair to compare to Maye, ‘this is a hit piece!’…
And round-n-round we go.
A lot of us may live in a Bear echo-chamber, but perhaps the sole good thing about Twitter is that one can see the haters from every echo-chamber!
So what does this all mean?
Simple. Caleb must prove the doubters wrong down the stretch.
It won’t be about stats, comp %, EPA, “4K!” or other nerdanomics.
Maybe not even about wins and losses.
Caleb’s rating could hit 158.3 the rest of the way, and it won’t matter in the win column if the defense gets lit up by SB contenders like the Lions, Eagles, 9ers, Pack [2X]…while Specials continue to struggle as flags fly.
Of course, we’re all going to be pulling for Caleb. How awesome would it be for him to rise above the criticism – to grow before our eyes and totally dominate from anthem to fade to black…
To transfigure into that mythical elite QB we’ve all been waiting for so long…
The franchise-messiah to finally lead us to the SB Promised-Land…
Will he deliver?
“We’ll see.”