Back at Halas Hall after their bye week, the Bears returned to the practice field Tuesday to begin preparing for Monday night's road game against the Commanders.
Coach Ben Johnson spoke to the media, sharing his evaluation of the team through its first four games of the season. The Bears are 2-2, losing to the Vikings (27-24) and Lions (52-21) before rebounding with wins over the Cowboys (31-14) and Raiders (25-24).
"Offensively, we're still a work in progress," Johnson said. "Some things we're doing well, some things we're not. The inconsistent nature with which we're playing, we're shooting ourselves in the foot quite a bit. And when I look at where we were through the first four weeks, [there have been] a lot of penalties … we were playing behind the sticks, and you can certainly feel that as I was calling [plays]."
Despite the miscues, the Bears rank 11th in the NFL in points per game (25.3) and have scored at least 21 points in each of their first four contests for the first time since 2013.
"I give the guys a lot of credit," Johnson said. "I did feel like we were pretty good at getting back on track as much as we could. But it's just not sustainable when you're playing football that way and so that's going to be an emphasis for us going forward. We've got to get the pre-snap penalties under control, and they know that."
Quarterback Caleb Williams has completed 62.3% of his passes for 927 yards with eight touchdowns, two interceptions and a 97.8 passer rating while only being sacked seven times. He has also rushed for 110 yards and one TD on 24 carries.
Receiver Rome Odunze leads the Bears in all receiving categories with 20 catches, 296 yards and five touchdowns. He is the franchise's first player to score a TD in each of the first four games of a season since Hall of Fame running back Walter Payton in 1986.
The Bears offense ranks 17th in the NFL in total yards, 24th rushing and 14th passing.
"Some things as an offense we're doing better than others," Johnson said. "The drop-back pass game right now, that goes hand-in-hand with the get-back-on-track mentality. [Williams] is doing a good job there of finding guys. Our guys are getting open. But the running game's struggling. The play-action game's not quite where it needs to be off of that. That's where you get a lot of explosives and chunk plays. Our screen game leaves a lot to be desired.
"I don't think it's any one person right now. It's all of us coming together to get this thing right."
Running backs D'Andre Swift (56 carries for 187 yards and two TDs) and Kyle Monangai (17-62-0) have combined for 249 yards on 73 attempts.
"Our guys are going to be fine," Johnson said. "It's not always the runners. It's everybody. It's the quarterback carrying out his fake. It's the receivers blocking downfield. It's the tight ends doing their job. The same thing with the offensive line. I think there's a lot of times on that tape we're not giving our runners a chance."
Johnson is confident that the rushing attack will improve as the season progresses.
"The running game—I've kind of alluded to it over the course of training camp—it's going to take a little bit of time for our guys to all mesh together and I think that's what the tape looks like now," Johnson said. "We're just not firing on all cylinders yet. Sometimes it can be the ballcarrier not hitting the right spot. Other times it's just our combinations aren't clean yet. And it's going to take everybody: it's quarterback, it's receivers, it's O-line, it's tight ends to go along with those runners.
"The guys are playing hard. They are playing for each other. We're doing a good job of getting that squared away and I think good things will happen the more time we spend together."
