It’s usually a positive to find your way into the NFL record book, but Bears quarterback Caleb Williams knows one way he’d avoid being commemorated.
Williams and the Bears will face the Browns this weekend, which means they’ll be tangling with defensive end Myles Garrett as he closes in on the NFL’s single-season sack record. Garrett has 20 sacks on the season and needs three more to take sole control of the mark, so one of Williams’ goals for the week is to avoid being dropped three times while trying to pass.
“Obviously, he’s right there at the sack record, almost there at the sack record,” Williams said, via Chris Easterling of the Akron Beacon Journal. “And so, I’m going to try and make sure that he doesn’t get the sack record on us and on me.”
Williams has been sacked 20 times this season, which is a big upgrade on the league-high 68 times that he was dropped during his rookie season. Packers head coach Matt LaFleur suggested last weekend that some of their success in protection has come because they’re getting away with holding and the Bears figure to try everything they can to make sure that Garrett doesn’t wreck things this weekend.
Shedeur Sanders said on Wednesday that he’s focused on being the Browns’ starting quarterback in Week 15 and not on the final three weeks of the season.
Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski said this week that Sanders will be the team’s starter for the rest of the regular season. That commitment gives Sanders, who has started the last three games, an extended chance to make his case for the job in 2026, but he said at a press conference that he’s only looking at this week when asked about the implications of Stefanski’s announcement.
“Yeah, that’s a long, deep thought,” Sanders said, via a transcript from the team. “Like, that’s not in my focus. My focus right now is the team we’re playing ahead, the Bears — anything past that I’m not really focused on, honestly. I’m thankful for it, but I’m not content with my situation, with everything. And we’re leading this team.”
Sanders made his debut in the second half of a Week 11 loss to the Ravens. He has gone 50-of-87 for 722 yards, five touchdowns and two interceptions since becoming the starter.
On Sunday, Da Bears constantly held Packers linebacker Micah Parsons, resorting at times to Da Bear Hug.
From the mugging to the choking to the grabbing to the pulling, it’s astounding that Parsons didn’t draw a single holding penalty.
But there’s a much larger problem. Holding is routinely not called by today’s NFL officials. Coincidentally (or not), the NFL wants yards and points and offensive excitement — especially as gamblers who bet the overs (as to the total score and/or the various crack-cocaine prop bets) keep watching the games deep into the fourth quarter to see whether their various wagers will prevail.
Before 1978, offensive linemen couldn’t extend their hands to block. They had to keep their fists together and elbows out, which has been immortalized by the electric football figure in the blocking posture that prevailed before the NFL realized that making it easier to block defensive linemen would open up the passing game.
Still, it has now gotten out of control. Late in the Week 8 game between the Vikings and Chargers, Prime Video played clips of some of left tackle Joe Alt’s plays during his first game back from a high ankle sprain. In every one of them, he was holding the pass rusher, to some degree.
He’s far from alone.
At this point, teams should be coaching their offensive linemen to do it. It’s similar to the Legion of Boom’s approach to covering receivers. Hold them on every single play, because the officials won’t bog the game down by constantly throwing flags.
As to holding, there are times when they never throw a flag.
So, yes, the Packers have a legitimate beef about the failure to call holding by the Bears. But the Packers should respond by telling their blockers to do the same thing to opposing defenders — if they haven’t already.
Put simply, the officials have allowed the sheer volume of holding fouls to overpower the system.
So hold ‘em if you got ‘em. The NFL wants yards and points and bets and viewers. Calling every hold that happens would directly impact each of those valuable factors of modern-day pro football.
The Bears played without Rome Odunze in Green Bay on Sunday, but missing a key wideout didn’t lead to a busy afternoon for DJ Moore.
Moore ended the day with one catch that lost four yards and was targeted on two other passes despite playing 56-of-68 offensive snaps during Chicago’s 28-21 loss. On Monday, head coach Ben Johnson said that was not the kind of contribution he expected Moore to have in the battle for first place in the NFC North.
“He ran some pretty good routes over the course of the day, and we just couldn’t give him the ball,” Johnson said, via the team’s website. “That was not the intent. Going into the game, we might have had more for him than any other player in the offense. Was a little surprised at the end when I saw the stat sheet for one catch like he had.”
Moore was not the target on the Bears’ final offensive play, which saw Caleb Williams get intercepted by Packers corner Keisean Nixon while trying for tight end Cole Kmet in the end zone. In the aftermath of the play, some noted that Moore appeared to be more open than his teammate but Johnson said that wasn’t the way he saw the play unfold.
“I didn’t see him being an answer in that time,” Johnson said. “I think he came open more after the ball was released from Caleb. Nixon was man-to-man with DJ and was trailing him and ended up falling off and making a play on Cole there.”
Moore was the Bears’ leader in catches and targets in each of his first two seasons with the team, but Odunze is in those spots this season and the Bears have given new faces Olamide Zaccheaus, Colston Loveland, and Luther Burden active roles in a more varied offense than they ran in those seasons. That change has sparked thoughts of changes to come in the offseason, but, for now, the Bears will look for more ways to get production from the veteran wideout.
The Browns did not win on Sunday, but quarterback Shedeur Sanders put together an impressive enough performance to solidify his spot as QB1.
Head coach Kevin Stefanski announced in his Monday press conference that Sanders will remain Cleveland’s starter for the rest of the 2025 season.
“I think all along with our quarterbacks and our young players, you’re always making sure that you’re making the right decisions for our guys,” Stefanski said. “And I think he has constantly and consistently gotten better in each one of these games. And how he’s approached this game, he’s been working very hard. So, I feel good about where his development is heading. He knows there are always going to be plays where he can be better and those types of things. But he’s very intentional about getting better each and every game he’s out there.”
Sanders took over as the starter after Gabriel suffered a concussion against the Ravens in Week 11 and has started the team’s last three games. In his four appearances with three starts, Sanders has completed 52.4 percent of his passes for 769 yards with five touchdowns and three interceptions.
In Sunday’s loss to the Titans, Sanders finished 23-of-42 for 364 yards with three touchdowns and an interception. He also took three carries for 29 yards with a TD.
Sanders’ next start will come on the road against the Bears in Week 15. Cleveland will follow that with games against Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati to cap the 2025 season.
