Bears quarterback Caleb Williams made a lot of plays in the second half of Sunday’s game against the Packers, but he wound up falling short on the team’s final offensive play.
Williams rolled left on a fourth-and-1 from the Packers’ 14-yard line and tried to hit tight end Cole Kmet in the end zone, but he didn’t get the ball over Packers cornerback Keisean Nixon. Nixon secured it for an interception that sealed the Packers’ 28-21 win and knocked the Bears out of first place in the NFC North.
After the game, Williams said he had multiple receiving options on the play as well as the chance to run for the first down if it was there but identified Kmet as the best choice as things unfolded. He lamented not giving the tight end more of a chance to make a play on the ball.
“Rolled out and saw Cole, I tried to give him a big-boy ball, try and let him go up for it because I ended up seeing [Nixon] start to sprint,” Williams said in his postgame press conference. “I tried to slow them up and kind of give him a chance. In those moments, it’s a got-to-have-it moment. They had a guy trailing me, so I didn’t feel like I could go get it myself. Just got to give Cole a better shot at it. I think next time, just extend him a little bit more and kind of lead him. But, in those moments, you want to put the ball in play and trust your guy or try to have your guy go make a play and just got to give him a better ball.”
Williams threw two touchdown passes in the second half and came up with a pair of big completions on the final drive to get the Bears into scoring position. He was 6-of-14 for 32 yards in the first half, however, and said the team was “shooting ourselves in the foot” while falling behind by 11 points at halftime. Those early struggles helped put them in a do-or-die situation at the end of the game and the Bears can’t afford to miss too many more opportunities if they’re going to finish the season with a playoff berth.
