Offensive line will determine Williams’ rookie success

The responsible move this week is to remind all Bears fans not to get carried away with two preseasons drives.

Here's a quick test: J.J. McCarthy threw for 188 yards and 2 touchdowns in his Vikings debut. Caleb Williams is stuck on 0 preseason TD passes.

Would you trade Williams straight up for McCarthy, right now today? If the answer is no, then congratulations. You successfully avoided the trap of getting carried away with a single preseason game.

That doesn't mean we can't dig into Williams' performance at Buffalo. A deep dissection of Williams' first 20 unofficial snaps as a pro led to this somewhat obvious conclusion: The rookie QB will go as far as the Bears’ offensive line allows.

The Bears' second offensive drive on Saturday could have easily ended with a three-and-out, instead of 12 plays, 84 yards and a field goal. The Bears faced third-and-six at their own 7-yard line. The Bills got pressure up the middle, no receiver was open and Williams had no chance to make anything positive happen.

Fortunately for the Bears, Buffalo corner Cam Lewis was flagged for grabbing Rome Odunze, keeping the drive alive and giving Williams more time to shine.

Another example is the first completion of the game, the 12-yarder to D.J. Moore on third down. It was a well-designed play. Moore ran a deep comeback route, then running back Travis Homer leaked out of the backfield late, drawing a linebacker away from Moore.

Good play, good throw, but it required stellar pass protection while Moore ran 15 yards downfield, then came back for the ball. This is the kind of completion where credit belongs to the offensive line. Both tackles fared well against Buffalo's best pass rushers.

Fast forward to Williams' final snap of the afternoon. Third-and-nine at the 18-yard line, Williams dropped back and nobody was open, absolutely nowhere to go with the ball, which is a bit troubling in itself. But the line held up and as Williams slid to his right and broke the pocket, Odunze put a move on his guy and broke free in the end zone.

Just one problem. Right tackle Darnell Wright wasn't ready for Williams' scramble and couldn't hold the edge against DeShawn Williams, who got in the face of the Bears QB and forced a bad throw. It would have been interesting to see if Williams could have connected with Odunze with room to unload a pass.

The Bears ran three bootleg passes on their second drive. Williams made nice throws, but that play was also where Justin Fields shined. Eventually defenses started waiting for it on the weak side. Not a nitpick, just a fact of life — more variety will be needed.

Blocks of granite

There were two new faces starting on the offensive line Saturday. One was Matt Pryor, the world's largest guard at 6-foot-7 and 332 pounds. He's a seventh-year veteran with 24 NFL starts under his belt with the Colts and Eagles.

Another was center Coleman Shelton. There was chatter in the offseason about former Bills lineman Ryan Bates starting at center, but Shelton might have a better track record, starting 30 games for the Rams the past two seasons.

Both Pryor and Shelton did well in their short stints. Shelton is a candidate for play of the day during D'Andre Swift's 42-yard reception on the opening drive.

Williams did a great job on the play. It wasn't an improv, because the play was clearly a designed screen pass. But Buffalo blitzed a linebacker, which messed up the timing. Williams stayed cool and flipped it to Swift.

Since the throw was hurried, the linemen didn't have a chance to get in front of the play, but Shelton still managed to pick off the one defender with the chance to make an early tackle.

Pryor and Shelton played well in this game, which could be important since right guard Nate Davis was a weak link on last year's line.

The line wasn't perfect. On the second play, Wright got pushed into Williams' lap by Buffalo's Greg Rousseau, who only played a few snaps. On this play, Williams had a chance to dump a quick pass over the middle to Odunze, but hesitated, then scrambled, which helped create a holding penalty on Wright.

Quick hitters

An interesting development was new tight end Gerald Everett lining up at H-back several times early in the game. Anyone who plays fantasy probably has some sort of feelings about Everett, and wondering if he's cut out to be a blocker is a fair take.

The Bears used a lot of duo blocking scheme, where they double-teamed the two defensive tackles, then one blocker tried to slide off the double-team out to a linebacker. Second-and-three on the Bills 11-yard line, the offensive line double-teamed, leaving end A.J. Epenesa for Everett. Well, Everett got blown up and Khalil Herbert was stopped short of the first down.

On third-and-one, the linemen again did a nice job clearing space, but Herbert tried to bounce outside and was dropped for a loss by Rasul Douglas. Maybe Everett could have blocked Douglas instead of the outside linebacker, but the better answer here was for Herbert to follow his blockers up the middle and get the first down. Preseason is the time to learn from mistakes. …

Best play by a first-string defender goes to Dominique Robinson. Early in the game, he fired inside and beat Buffalo's right tackle. Meanwhile, the left tackle pulled and hit Robinson full speed, but he somehow managed to hold his ground and drop James Cook for a 2-yard loss on third down.

Hard to tell if the Bears will ride with Robinson opposite Montez Sweat or maybe try to pick up a value free agent at some point. Backup defensive ends Austin Booker and Daniel Hardy had some nice moments in scrub time.