Ben Johnson Has Strong Words for Bears’ Offense After First 4 Weeks
Getty
(Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images)
Coming into the year, many Chicago Bears fans wanted the team to show significant improvements on both sides of the football. With head coach Ben Johnson taking over, fans hope he can turn Caleb Williams into the quarterback many saw when he came into the NFL.
Caleb Williams entered the NFL as a generational talent, but his rookie season fell well short of expectations. Still, the second-year quarterback has plenty of time to grow into the star many projected him to be.
Bears Coach Ben Johnson Gets Honest
It’s tough to say that the Chicago Bears‘ offense has been perfect throughout the first four weeks of the season, but there have also been improvements every single week. They scored 24 points in the first game of the year and 21 in the second, before responding with 31 points against the Dallas Cowboys and 25 against the Las Vegas Raiders, both of which were wins. Not only did they score more points in both games, but Williams has also started to figure some things out, including leading a game-winning drive late against the Raiders.
When speaking to reporters about how the offense has looked throughout the first four weeks, it sounds like Johnson expects the Bears to be even better on that front moving forward. He doesn’t believe that anybody is pulling their weight yet, including himself.
“I don’t feel like everybody on offense yet is pulling their weight, and that’s myself included. There’s a number of things from yesterday’s game that I have to do a better job of; there’s a couple calls I was getting in late. There’s a couple things that the coaching staff, myself, we could have coached up better to give us a better chance there.
“When you look at it as a whole, it was just a mess, man. I’m just not proud of what we put on tape. I think it’s a reflection of myself; I always take it personally. I saw us getting better the first three weeks in a lot of ways on offense and then this was just a little bit of a step back for us,” he said, per Courtney Cronin of ESPN.
Bears QB Caleb Williams Is Gaining Confidence
Everybody has said all the right things for the Chicago Bears over the past few months, but again, this is an organization and a fan base that’s dying for success. The words don’t mean as much if they can’t deliver the job. For Williams to come out against the Las Vegas Raiders, however, and do what he did in the fourth quarter, was a massive step.
He stated, according to the team website, that those are the moments he loves. He has the confidence in himself to go out and make plays, and that confidence is only growing as he gets older.
“I think it’s just the confidence that I’ve had in myself through the hard work that I’ve put into myself and my work and my craft,” Williams said Tuesday at Halas Hall. “It’s just grown over the years. It started when I was younger.
“Those moments, you go through a whole game and there’s not many things that the [defense] is going to show you differently in those moments. I feel more comfortable in those moments. I think my heart rate drops. Everything kind of settles in. It’s gotta-have-it moments. I think I’ve done a good job with that over my career in those gotta-have-it moments, and I think it comes from the hard work throughout the week, the belief in teammates, things like that.”
Hopefully, this is just the start of Bears‘ offense eventually being one of the best in the NFL.
Yankees Captain Hopeful After Red Sox Loss
The only positive about the New York Yankees losing the division — and it's a silver lining more than anything — is that they wouldn't have any time to cool off. Riding a winning streak, the bats were hot, and the pitching had been stellar. What was most unfortunate for them was that they ran into a buzzsaw by the name of Garrett Crochet, who methodically diced one of the best lineups in the American League.
The Boston Red Sox now seek to eliminate the Yankees, whose scalding September play could fall by the wayside as just a footnote in an otherwise disappointing season. While things do seem grim, and a few of manager Aaron Boone's moves being called into question, the one person keeping it together is their captain, Aaron Judge. He remains positive.
“We’re going to keep playing our game,” Judge said, according to Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. “We’re coming into this postseason rolling, everybody clicking, bullpen working, starting pitching has been elite. So we’ll just focus on what we’ve got to do.”
Judge may have been on to something about the lineup clicking, even if the score did not reflect that. While the runs were not there, and the bats fell silent against Crochet, they did make hard contact against the potential Cy Young winner. They put in play eight balls that were hit over 95 MPH. Two were barreled.
The ones that were barreled were Anthony Volpe's home run and Jose Caballero's long flyout. Giancarlo Stanton's first-inning double play had also been walloped. It left his bat at 106 MPH and had an expected batting average of .310.
Crochet is just a different beast, though, and the hard contact amounted to little in game one. They are hoping for different results in game two. Either that or the season is finished.
In the other clubhouse, manager Alex Cora is also optimistic. After a game one win, there may be more reason for it, too.
“Hopefully we can continue that,” Cora told reporters. “We have a tough one tomorrow again. Rodón has been amazing throughout this season. They are going to have their left-handed hitters in the lineup. We have Brayan [Bello], who likes it here and has pitched well throughout his career. I expect [Game 2] to be just like this one.”
The Yankees find their season on life support with such a short series. It now falls into the hands of Carlos Rodon, who, in his last postseason start, was disastrous. In that game, Rodon went 3.1 innings. He struck out three but also matched that by allowing three home runs.
