Bears QB Caleb Williams: I needed to give Cole Kmet a 'better ball' on game-sealing interception
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Bears tight end Cole Kmet was as open as a Leinenkugel’s at a tailgate.
When quarterback Caleb Williams rolled to his left on fourth-and-one from the Packers’ 14 with 27 seconds left Sunday, Kmet ran the same corner route he turned into a touchdown Nov. 28 in Philadelphia.
The Packers fell for it, just as the Eagles did, crashing toward the line of scrimmage and eyeing running back D’Andre Swift in the left flat.
By the time Kmet’s route reached the 2-yard line, the closest defender, cornerback Keisean Nixon, was four yards behind him. All Williams had to do was what he did against the Eagles: loft the ball and lead Kmet into the back left corner of an otherwise-empty end zone. A touchdown and an extra point would have tied the score. Or head coach Ben Johnson could have gone for two and the victory.
Instead, Williams left the throw short.
He rolled left and planted his right foot exactly halfway between the 2 and the 0 painted on the half-frozen turf at Lambeau Field but couldn’t manage enough strength to throw the ball over Nixon’s head. Nixon leaped, intercepted the pass and sealed the Packers’ 28-21 victory Sunday night.
‘‘In those moments, you want to put the ball in play and trust your guy or try to have your guy make a play,’’ Williams said. ‘‘Just gotta give him a better ball.’’
It wasn’t a hard throw, Williams said. Throwing while rolling left is supposed to be his superpower. Last week, quarterbacks coach J.T. Barrett said only the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes does it better, joking Williams has ‘‘freaky stuff in his body where he can rotate that torso and flick it like it ain’t nothin’.’’
The interception prevented Williams from notching his sixth fourth-quarter comeback and knocked the 9-4 Bears from the top seed in the NFC to the last team in the playoffs if the season ended today.
‘‘I thought I was pretty open,’’ Kmet said. ‘‘There’s a million other things going on that Caleb’s gotta dissect in front of him. A tough way to end it, obviously.’’
The start wasn’t so great, either. Williams’ struggles in the first half and a porous Bears pass defense combined to allow the Packers to open a 14-3 lead at halftime. Twenty-two minutes into the game, Williams was 1-for-7 for two yards. He went 6-for-14 for 32 yards in the first half, with 10 of those coming on a third-and-19 checkdown with 10 seconds left.
He was much better after halftime, however, going 13-for-21 with two touchdowns and a 96.1 passer rating. Williams credited a quick halftime reset in which the Bears reminded each other to focus on the details.
‘‘It’s frustration because we shot ourselves in the foot more than anything,’’ he said.
KEISEAN CALLED GAME#ProBowlVote + Keisean Nixon
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If the Bears are a playoff team, they can’t afford for Williams to turn in another dud of a half.
‘‘I need to start faster; we need to start faster,’’ Williams said. ‘‘I think that would do us well as a team and as an offense, especially.’’
In the first half, the Bears struggled to keep pace with Packers quarterback Jordan Love, who finished 17-for-25 for 234 yards, three touchdowns and a 120.7 passer rating. In the second half, Williams eclipsed him. The Bears’ three possessions before the interception ended in two touchdowns and a field goal. He rolled right and threw a one-yard touchdown pass to a diving Olamide Zaccheaus in the third quarter and found tight end Colston Loveland for a one-yard touchdown midway through the fourth.
Josh Jacobs ran for a two-yard touchdown on third down with 3:32 left to give the Packers a seven-point lead. He had kept the drive alive when he bounced off a tackle try by defensive tackle Gervon Dexter that would have forced fourth down, plowing forward for a 21-yard gain.
With the Bears trailing 28-21, Williams got the ball at the 26 and promptly hit wide
receiver Luther Burden down the left sideline for 27 yards. Two plays later, he scrambled right and found little-used wide receiver Devin Duvernay crossing from left to right. The 24-yard pass gave the Bears the ball at the Packers’ 23 at the two-minute warning.
‘‘Caleb was doing everything he could,’’ Johnson said. ‘‘He put his Superman cape on a few times to not go down and extend the play.’’
Wanting to bleed clock and lean on a running game that ground down the Packers in the second half, Johnson called three consecutive handoffs to Kyle Monangai for six yards, three yards and no gain.
The teams exchanged timeouts to plan for the fourth-and-one from the 14. When Williams rolled left, he saw three defenders keying on Swift. The Packers trailed Williams with a defender, too, taking away his ability to scramble for the yard.
‘‘We had a lot of options there,’’ Johnson said.
The one Williams chose didn’t work.
‘‘It’s not always going to work in our favor,’’ Williams said. ‘‘We work our tail off to try and not have these situations. But when the situations do come, we’ve got to try and go make plays and try and come back and make the right plays to seal the win.’’