LAKE FOREST, Ill. -- For the first time in his NFL career, Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams exited a game with his stat line showing a zero in an important category.
Chicago's 34-14 win over the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday marked the Bears' first win of the season and the first time Williams hadn't taken a sack in a game. It's a point of pride for Williams, who took a league-high 68 sacks as a rookie last season and tallied six in his first two games, but he was quick to deflect the accomplishment.
"It's pretty cool," Williams said. "All kudos to the big boys up front. They've been working their tails off."
Williams being kept clean paved the way for him to record his first career game with four passing touchdowns and zero interceptions. He produced a career-high 94 Total QBR while throwing for 298 yards and completing 67.9% of his passes.
Importantly, Williams excelled when playing within structure. Against the Cowboys, 83% of Williams' dropbacks ended inside of the pocket. He produced one of the best games of his career from inside the pocket with a career-high 11.7 yards per attempt.
Williams' achievements inside the pocket resulted in three of his four touchdown passes, and he was more willing to throw over the middle. He set a career high with 35.7% of his passes targeting the intermediate area (10-19 yards), according to Next Gen Stats. Williams' QBR jumped from 49 to 92 while his yards per attempt increased from 6.8 to 11.7 along with his completion percentage (65% to 71%) from Weeks 1-2 to Sunday.
"When the offensive line protects like that, it's a lot easier to play from the pocket," Bears coach Ben Johnson said. "He's got the ability to escape and extend and all that, but man, if we can keep him in there, our playmakers are some dynamic route runners that we can get the ball to them in space. I think he saw when he plays on time, he's trusting the hitches within his drops and we can be an explosive offense that way.
"There's a lot of ways that Caleb Williams can hurt you, and like I said when we have pass protection like we had yesterday, that certainly helps."
The Bears revamped their offensive line during the offseason and brought in guards Joe Thuney and Jonah Jackson via trades, and signed center Drew Dalman in free agency. While the left tackle spot produced a de facto winner in Braxton Jones after a position battle throughout training camp left Johnson less than satisfied, Jones did not give up a single pressure against Dallas after giving up a team-high 12 in his first two games.
Though Williams was quick to give all the credit to his offensive line, the 23-year-old quarterback showed he could work around moments of struggles up front and still win from the pocket. The Bears' 65% pass block win rate against Dallas was 11th out of Williams' 20 career games and Chicago's second lowest in a win with Williams at QB.
Dalman seemed to appreciate the sentiment from his quarterback but pointed to several areas where he felt the offensive line could play better.
"I guess first, I would say there were definitely things that we could have done much better, and we will continue to work on those and improve," Dalman said. "Maybe did a better job as a unit handling some of the movement in the games and kind of helping each other so we're not all taking a bunch of one-on-one reps out there. I think guys did a great job straining, and we'll continue to get better because it definitely wasn't perfect or up to our standard.
"Like, you could give up no sacks but maybe Caleb bailed us out of a few. It could have been better from our end, and, so, I think that's how we'll focus on that."