‘We’ve taken the training wheels off’: Despite defeat, Bears’ belief in Williams continues to grow

Sunday night’s 42-38 loss to the 49ers was a mixed bag for the Bears. Quarterback Caleb Williams proved that he can keep the Bears toe to toe with one of the best offenses in the NFL. But the Bears defense struggled to keep up and showed major issues a couple weeks before Chicago starts its playoff run.

The Bears have one game left to get everything fine-tuned, hosting the Detroit Lions at Soldier Field on Sunday to end the regular season. Here are three of the most interesting things Johnson said Monday.

On Caleb Williams’, offense’s growth

Williams put together one of his best performances in front of a national audience Sunday night. He threw for a season-high 330 yards to go along with two touchdowns as he kept pace with 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy and a hot San Francisco offense.

But Williams wasn’t only impressive in the stat sheet. He also impressed with some throws and decisions he made Sunday that showed growth from the second-year quarterback in his first season with Johnson.

One of the biggest signs of growth came in the second quarter when Williams took advantage of a free play. The 49ers had lined up offsides as the Bears snapped the ball. Williams took advantage of the situation by extending the play until he found rookie tight end Colston Loveland in the end zone for a 36-yard touchdown pass.

“Caleb was able to find a little bit of extra time and threw a great ball down the field,” Johnson said. “Once again, he has these throws every week that you’re just like, ‘I don’t know how many quarterbacks in the NFL can really do that on a regular basis.’ ”

Plays like that are why Johnson is more comfortable with running his full playbook now compared to the beginning of the season when Johnson kept to basic concepts.

Although it didn’t lead to a touchdown, the hook-and-ladder play at the end of the game from Loveland to running back D’Andre Swift was a good example of that trust. It’s a play that requires great precision where everyone has to be detail-oriented. Johnson has the confidence to run those types of plays now.

“We’ve taken the training wheels off,” Johnson said. “These guys are doing a phenomenal job coming into the building each week and taking a plan and bringing it to life. I can’t say enough good things about whether they’re rookies, undrafted, veteran players. It doesn’t matter who it is on offense right now, but they’ve really bought into how we go about our business.”

On defensive struggles

While the Bears offense had one of its best games of the season, the defense responded with one of its worst.

Purdy and the 49ers offense moved the ball down the field easily. They put up 496 total yards of offense and scored a touchdown on six of their 10 possessions. San Francisco is averaging 35.7 points per game during its current six-game winning streak.

Johnson tried to provide context to the situation. While the defense struggled with its fundamentals going against a really talented offense, he also thought a poor Bears offensive start played a role in the defensive struggles.

“I didn’t feel like our offense did our part in the first half,” Johnson said. “We did not possess the ball. We had a couple three-and-outs and you look at our defense, they got a pick-6, they got a couple punts and if we bow up in the red zone, I think we feel better about the performance,” Johnson said. “And that’s not to take anything away from San (Francisco), they did a great job. But there are certainly things fundamentally that we can improve on and we’re going to look to address here.”

One of those improvements will need to be Chicago’s red zone defense. The 49ers scored on all five of their trips to red zone. That was in stark contrast from the previous week after Chicago shut out the Green Bay Packers in all five of their red zone trips.

“Each week’s a little bit different,” Johnson said. “Every offense has a different red zone story to them and so they simply executed better than we did with their plan.”

On looking ahead

The Bears will still have a lot to play for when they host the Detroit Lions at 3:25 p.m. Sunday despite guaranteeing a playoff berth and NFC North championship.

Chicago will play for the NFC playoff No. 2 seed after it was eliminated from earning the No. 1 seed with Sunday’s loss. The Bears will maintain the No. 2 with either a win over the Lions or a Philadelphia Eagles loss to the Washington Commanders.

There was some question whether the Bears would rest some players in Week 18 and not risk injuries for the playoffs. But Johnson made clear his goal for the Lions game.

“We’re playing to win this week,” Johnson said.

Whether the Bears will be healthier against the Lions remains to be seen.

The biggest injury concern heading into the matchup will be Rome Odunze’s foot injury. He’s missed the last four games after he reaggravated it before playing the Cleveland Browns in Week 15.

Johnson didn’t provide much clarity whether Odunze could make his return before the start of the playoffs.

“He’s right on track with where we have him slotted,” Johnson said. “And so we’ll kind of go through the course of the week here and see what his availability is in terms of practice.”