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Jason Garrett knows he experienced an anomaly as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys in 2016. Then-rookie quarterback Dak Prescott went 13-3, threw 23 touchdown passes and managed just four interceptions.
When Garrett, now a studio analyst on NBC’s “Football Night in America,” watched Caleb Williams’ NFL debut, he thought of Prescott and the other rare rookies.
“(Williams) is going to face different defenses that are going to try to confuse him in different ways, and I think we saw a lot of that in Week 1,” Garrett said The athlete this week before the Chicago Bears game against the Houston Texans on “Sunday Night Football.”
“But I think everyone has to remember that CJ Stroud is the exception. Dak Prescott winning 13 games as a rookie is the exception. Ben Roethlisberger making it to the Super Bowl is the exception.”
“There have been a lot of elite quarterbacks, Hall of Fame players in this league who have struggled early on over the years. I think it’s a mistake for someone to re-evaluate Week 1 for a rookie quarterback.”
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Williams completed 14 of 29 passes against the Tennessee Titans for just 93 yards. One thing that stood out to Garrett while watching the game was that Williams couldn’t get into his rhythm. In a road game against a playoff team on Sunday night, helping the rookie get into his rhythm will be paramount for Bears offensive coordinator Shane Waldron.
“As a former quarterback, as a former coach, how do you get someone back into the groove?” Garrett said. “I’ve always just thought about, let’s make some positive plays. Whether that means finding a run that we like, finding a high-hit throw that we like, let’s start getting some singles and some base hits and let’s start moving the ball down the field.”
This is a reiteration of something we heard on Thursday from Waldron, who said, “Starting with me, there are things we can train better, namely getting ourselves into a better rhythm.”
The Bears had just 11 first downs in Week 1, the fewest in a win since 2018.
“When I watched the game live and then watched it again, that was the problem,” Garrett said. “There weren’t a lot of things they could do on offense that they could rely on and feel good about.”
Last year, as Garrett was preparing to broadcast the Notre Dame-USC game on NBC, he spoke with Al Golden, the defensive coordinator who was preparing to play against Williams.
Golden told him about his plan to force Williams to the left and not let him escape the pocket. He also had coverage ideas to limit the Heisman Trophy winner.
“Al is a great coach and someone I’ve known for a long time,” Garrett said. “I nod and say, ‘Yeah, yeah, but once the game starts, nobody’s ever stopped him.’ But they actually did that.
“They had a really good offensive plan, but they pinned him in the pocket and kept him off balance, causing him to make some ill-advised throws. That was the first time I saw him struggle as a quarterback.”
Garrett’s assessment of Williams as he prepared for the Notre Dame-USC game? “Spectacular.”
“He’s a fantastic athlete. He has an elite arm,” Garrett said. “His ability to throw the ball from different body angles is something I think is extraordinary.”
Although the Bears found a way to win, Caleb Williams completed just 48 percent of his passes for 93 yards in his regular season debut. (Stacy Revere / Getty Images)
When evaluating quarterbacks, Garrett’s priority is whether they have the instincts to play the position. He said he’s seen quarterbacks who “look like they do” but don’t read the game well enough.
But when he watched Williams, that wasn’t the case.
“He has incredible instincts for the game,” he said. “(Defenders) around him, he senses them, he sees them, he evades them. He’s a very instinctive athlete and an instinctive player. Now he’s got to get to the next level where he starts to understand the game, what they’re doing offensively when you compare it to what the defense is doing, how it all fits together.”
“I’m sure you can’t watch him play college football and think he’s not an instinctive quarterback. Now he just has to learn how to use those instincts at the NFL level.”
For all the talk about Stroud, the reigning Offensive Rookie of the Year, it’s running back Joe Mixon who is expected to get a lot of attention from Bears coaches this week.
That’s how Garrett began analyzing the matchup after Mixon ran for 159 yards in Week 1.
“If they can run the football as consistently as they did last week in Indianapolis, they’re going to be a really tough team to stop,” Garrett said.
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This will help make things easier for Stroud in his second season, and Garrett noted that “sometimes you can get unlucky in year two.”
“The curse of the second year in college is actually a byproduct of teams studying the coordinator and the quarterback and taking away some of the things they’ve done well and forcing them to grow and develop,” he said. “I think signing Mixon allows them to do that. They’ll be able to play differently and be much more balanced.”
Garrett listed Stroud’s other weapons – Nico Collins, Stefon Diggs, Tank Dell and Dalton Schultz.
“For me, it’s Chicago’s ability to slow down Houston’s offense, especially Joe Mixon in that running game,” he said.
On the other side of the ball, Garrett will be looking to see if the Bears can develop an identity on offense, those “hang your hat off” plays that can lead to consistency in moving the ball forward.
“That’s the process that a lot of offenses go through, especially early in the season, just figuring out who they are and what might be good for them,” Garrett said. “I think the Bears will do a better job of that this week.”
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(Top photo: Denny Medley / USA Today)
