Bears’ Caleb Williams finds big-play connection with DJ Moore

CHICAGO — Within three seconds of the ball being snapped late in the second quarter, Bears quarterback Caleb Williams had everything he wanted right in front of him.

The rookie manipulated the Panthers’ secondary, using a hitch after dropping back to pass to move Carolina safety Xavier Woods to his right. The opening created on the backside of the play gave Williams a singled-up DJ Moore, who was sprinting toward the end zone.

Without hesitation, the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft let it rip.

The result was a 30-yard touchdown for Moore — his second of the game — and helped the Bears (3-2) build a 20-point lead at halftime. The best performance of Williams’ young NFL career coincided with Moore’s banner day and resulted in a 36-10 win against the receiver’s former team.

“I’ve been wanting one of those,” Williams said. “DJ is such a special player, and you all saw it today. Him making plays … Having a special player like that on your team, you obviously want to give him the ball, let him just be DJ and be special. It felt really good. We were super excited. We got to the sideline and we were both like, ‘Finally, we were able to hit something like that.'”

The Bears’ offense hit the 400-yard mark for the first time this season on an afternoon when Williams completed 20 of 29 pass attempts for 309 yards, 2 touchdowns and 0 interceptions with a 126.2 passer rating — the highest by a Bears rookie in a single game since at least the 1970 merger.

Moore finished with a team-high five catches for 105 yards and two touchdowns. The connection with Williams was highlighted by explosive pass plays that laid dormant during the first month of the season.

“It’s amazing,” Moore said. “What’s this, Week 5? Took five weeks to get the down-the-field pass game going. When it hits, it hits, and it was good today.”

Williams checked the next box in his development after struggling to find his deep ball accuracy in his first four games.

In Weeks 1-4, Williams was 5-of-29 (17%) with three interceptions on passes of at least 15 air yards — both marks ranked at the bottom of the NFL among qualified QBs. Against the Panthers, the rookie was 4-for-4 for 108 yards and two touchdowns on deep passes.

The Bears’ downfield efficiency came one week after Moore and Williams separately voiced frustrations over their struggling on-field connection, which culminated at the end of the first half of Chicago’s win over the Rams when the two failed to connect in the end zone.

Moore put the blame on himself and vowed that there wouldn’t be “any mishaps” on similar plays in the future.

Sunday’s performance showed that chemistry is beginning to hit its stride.

“Just us getting comfortable, us seeing what we can do,” Williams said. “… Just building confidence and trust between each other and trusting this offense between everybody. Offensive line, running backs, protection, the routes and what depth to run it at and how many steps, things like that. Going through the reads and a bunch more.

“We need to keep building, keep going. Obviously, great win, but definitely not settled on this.”

After a slow start to the season when he threw for 93 yards in his debut against Tennessee Titans, Williams has made tangible strides on a weekly basis. In addition to igniting the Bears’ passing attack, Williams has demonstrated growth against the blitz in back-to-back wins over the Rams and Panthers.

Carolina blitzed Williams on 31% of dropbacks, his third game this season where the rookie has faced a blitz at least 30% of the time. Williams, however, did some of his best work against the increased pressure, completing 8 of 10 passes for 128 yards and a touchdown vs. the blitz.

Though Chicago’s back-to-back wins came against two of the NFL’s worst defenses, the Bears’ offense continues to see weekly progress.

For a second straight game, running back D’Andre Swift had more than 100 yards of total offense (73 yards rushing, 47 receiving) and a goal-line touchdown run. Williams involved the full complement of players around him by targeting Moore, Rome Odunze, Keenan Allen and Cole Kmet at least four times each.

“That’s good quarterbacking,” coach Matt Eberflus said. “It just is. It’s finding the completions, taking the shots down the field. We wanted to get our receivers involved today and we did that. Cole’s been involved. We got [ Gerald Everett] involved. We got everybody involved in the passing games, so I think that’s really good to be able to distribute that, play point guard, be able to do that. Hard to defend that way.”

Throughout the week, Williams and Moore prioritized the connection they had been searching for since the start of the season. It allowed the rookie to take the next step in his development.

“He’s just a really quick learner,” Kmet said. “It’s not easy, especially at this level. I just think it shows his willingness to get better every week. Obviously, he has the talent to be one of the best in the league, but he’s done a good job of being patient with himself in a certain regard … having that fire on him where he feels the heat a little bit where he knows he needs to get better at certain things.

“There were things today collectively that we all can be better at, but his command of the offense has just grown each and every week. Even a lot faster than I anticipated to this point.”