{"id":79728,"date":"2025-11-25T09:14:52","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T23:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/?p=79728"},"modified":"2026-07-03T10:29:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T00:29:36","slug":"caleb-williams-makes-me-feel-like-im-taking-crazy-pills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/2025\/11\/caleb-williams-makes-me-feel-like-im-taking-crazy-pills\/","title":{"rendered":"Caleb Williams Makes Me Feel Like I\u2019m Taking Crazy Pills\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I was about 30 years late to the party on Twin Peaks.<\/em><\/a><\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the first time in my life, I watched it last year. The first season and a half were genuinely dazzling, basically right up until Leland is revealed as Bob and is then killed.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That sentence made me remember the sequence in a way that gave me goosebumps again<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The guy that plays Bob is in hall of fame of people with scary faces. It\u2019s him and Peter Pettigrew. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the centre of it, you could feel a level of genius with David Lynch. <\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having said all of that, and while the truthers may not like it, the second part of season 2 is terrible.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How many episodes do we need with Leo obviously coming back to life? Why is this MILF trying to date that weirdo James? How long do we need to spend with these people?<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This show is on every single best TV show of all-time list and a quarter of it is just not good, even though there was obvious genius there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It made me feel like I was taking crazy pills.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s a very dated way to tell you that I feel like I\u2019m taking crazy pills with Caleb Williams. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can\u2019t dispute that he has the Bears at 8-3, nor can you dispute that he\u2019s very talented.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond that, the nerds are telling me how good it is and how well it\u2019s working with Ben Johnson.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I can\u2019t help but ask the Moneyball <\/em>question: if he\u2019s a good player why doesn\u2019t\u2019 he play good<\/a>? Or more to it, why doesn\u2019t he play good more often?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer is relatively straightforward. Caleb makes that hard stuff easy and the easy stuff hard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Williams has proven himself to be virtually impossible to sack, especially compared to how he was last year. Williams has absorbed 91 pressures, top-5 in the league, but has been sacked just 17 times<\/a> largely because of he\u2019s a Nick Mullen level improviser. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not just with his legs, either. Caleb has an elastic and freaky arm that can pin the ball on receivers at a rate of knots, almost irrespective of what his feet are doing.<\/a>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is that this trait is neither feature, nor bug. It\u2019s the entire car. He lives in creation mode.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s in diametric opposition to the idea of Ben Johnson as offensive playcaller.<\/a>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By bringing in Johnson, the Bears hoped that he could hone Caleb\u2019s flair for the dramatic and pair it highly regimented and schemed up world that Ben Johnson created for Jared Goff to make life easy on his quarterback. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a diverse run game and a passing game built off that, the Lions were a consistent and explosive offence<\/a> helmed by a quarterback who got to the top of his drop and let it rip, secure in the knowledge that his coach had schemed guys open.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over Johnson\u2019s three years calling plays with the Lions they had a 47% success rate, fifth in the NFL over that span. They were essentially always on track. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his Johnson\u2019s final year with the Lions, Goff had a 55% success rate with about 9 adjusted yards per attempt and copping about 2 hurries per game.<\/a>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Williams this year, has a 45% success rate (tied with Justin Fields for 25th<\/sup>, just behind Geno Smith) for 7.4 adjusted yards per attempt and about 5 hurries a game.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While some elements of the Lions\u2019 passing game have been imported, particularly a strong run game and a heavy focus on under centre play action, the Bears haven\u2019t been anywhere near as broadly effective as the Lions were.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a number of factors leading to Williams\u2019 worse numbers, including: <\/p>\n\n\n\n