Williams, Bears offense know where they have to improve when they play Houston on Sunday night

The Bears won a football game on Sunday. They are 1-0. But the season opener against Tennessee didn’t necessarily feel like a win for the Bears’ offense.

Quarterback Caleb Williams threw for only 93 passing yards. The offense never found the end zone. The Bears scored three field goals and received a much-needed boost from touchdowns on defense and special teams. The offense totaled 148 yards from scrimmage.

There was a lot to talk about on Monday morning.

“There’s nothing like game reps for us as an offense to get out there, be able to come in the building on Monday and evaluate and talk through everything,” offensive coordinator Shane Waldron said Thursday at Halas Hall.

Most offenses were pretty rusty in Week 1. That’s especially true nowadays when NFL teams hardly play their starters in the preseason. Seventeen starting quarterbacks failed to throw for at least 200 passing yards in Week 1.

Week 1 is all about sloppy football — and the Bears were sloppy.

The Bears brought Waldron to Chicago to transform this offense. The goal is to put Williams in a position to succeed and to do so as quickly as possible. The Bears have surrounded him with weapons, but it still falls on Waldron’s shoulders to manage those weapons properly.

The best offensive coordinators don’t make the big bucks because of their Week 1 game plans. The real test is whether they can adjust, both to the strengths of the players on their team and to the way that defenses are playing against them.

“Every week, there’s going to be different issues that may or may not come up,” Waldron said. “For us, handling that adversity, it will armor us for this full 17-game regular season right here.”

Here are three adjustments Waldron is hoping to see in Week 2.

Cole Kmet will play more

Last season, tight end Cole Kmet consistently played 70%, 80% or 90% of snaps in most games. In the first game with Waldron as OC, Kmet played 48% of the plays and teammate Gerald Everett played 61%. Kmet caught 1 pass for 4 yards.

“Obviously, that’s not something I was thrilled about,” Kmet said. “But it’s not something that I can control. The thing I can control is how I operate while I’m out there and how I execute. Look, it is what it is. I’m kind of going to chalk it up to Week 1, us trying to figure some things out.”

Waldron’s offenses with the Seattle Seahawks were known for using multiple tight ends throughout games. There’s a way for both Kmet and Everett to coexist within the offense.

“We know Cole is one of the top tight ends in the league,” Waldron said. “He does a great job for us. He has done nothing but the right thing ever since I’ve been around him. So that’s more on us, starting with me, getting the reps a little bit more balance.”

The run game will improve

Waldron was impressed with the way the offensive line attacked practice on Wednesday.

“Those guys set the tone for practice like they will every day,” Waldron said. “Excited to see what those guys go out and do next week.”

They will need to set the tone. They didn’t do that in the first half of the season opener. The Bears went into halftime with 16 rushing yards. That was supposed to be an area where the Bears rock solid. They ranked second in the NFL in rushing a year ago. They finished the game with 84 rushing yards.

Williams is going to need some help from the run game.

“We always want to have that balance of the run and the pass,” Waldron said. “I think this past week, obviously, wanted to do a better job of getting some more runs off.”

Williams will grow more comfortable

Williams, remember, hadn’t played in a live game since November. He missed some easy throws he should’ve made. He himself admitted that this week, noting there were six throws he’d like to have back.

For Waldron, fixing those issues has a lot to do with a quarterback’s footwork. The passing game is all about timing. Getting those steps timed up right with the receivers is key.

“[It’s] just playing with that good clean tempo, and we mentioned clean eyes, clean feet and sticking to that,” Waldron said. “That’ll obviously lead to an improved accuracy on a couple throws here and there. But we have seen him make all these throws throughout the course of practice, throughout his college career, and have all the confidence in the world that each week that will get incrementally better and we’ll be excited with what we see.”