Caleb Williams wasn’t perfect, but credit Bears QB for turning it loose: Quick Outs

It’s a playoff edition of Quick Outs, and what better place to start than in Chicago, where Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams helped the Bears pull off their greatest escape yet in an increasingly magical season. Our full list of topics:

• Putting Williams in the charting spotlight
• Was the 49ers’ win an example of great defense or bad offense?
• Breaking down a throwback performance by a Bills DB
• Can the Rams’ cornerbacks hold up this postseason?

First up, it’s Williams …

QB charting: Caleb Williams

If you watched Williams on Saturday (or really at any point over the second half of the season), and your first response was to blather about completion percentage or a couple of ugly misfires, I don’t know what to tell you. You’re missing the forest for the trees.

A few sprays here and there contribute to Williams’ often-low completion percentages, but so does the combination of his play style and what the offense asks of him. This is not a cheap passing game littered with screens, RPOs and quick game. Head coach Ben Johnson threw Williams into the fire Saturday, and the QB eventually walked out alive.

Even for Williams and the Bears, the game plan against the Packers was aggressive.

(Notes: ADJ – WR Adjustment, PD – Pass breakup, DR – Drop; Screen passes not counted under man/zone splits or open/closed passing window splits)

According to TruMedia, there have been 93 games this season in which a quarterback threw at least 40 passes, playoffs included. Williams, at 4.2 percent, had the lowest percentage of passes at or behind the line of scrimmage among those games. It was also the lowest mark in any such game over the last five seasons, which expands to 543 individual performances.

Moreover, 60.4 percent of Williams’ throws traveled at least to the sticks, the second-highest mark in a game of 40-plus pass attempts this season, and the highest in a win. It was also the seventh-highest clip in a 40-plus-attempt game over the last five seasons.

Oh, and Williams threw 41.7 percent of his attempts at least 15 yards, the highest rate in a game with that kind of passing volume since Aaron Rodgers against the Lions in Week 17 of the 2019 season.

Some of that chaos was intentional, but why shouldn’t it be, given how talented Williams is? He was accurate on eight of 11 throws outside the pocket Saturday, which included a drop by DJ Moore and a “miss” that was a smart throwaway. Under pressure, Williams was a solid nine of 15, which included two more critical drops.

Even the interception Williams threw under pressure — the turnover near the Packers’ goal line — came on fourth down with nobody open and a free rusher in his face immediately. That ball had to come out to somebody, and the pick hardly affected field position. (And the INT earlier, on a pass attempt to Luther Burden III, was because of a clear misunderstanding of the passing concept on Burden’s part, but that might take a whole new subheading to break down.)

Look, Williams can be frustrating. The three times a game he sails a corner route over someone’s head or is a tick late getting to the back side of a concept are tough. Still, he’s clearly so much more put together from the pocket than he was at USC or even as a rookie in Chicago, and the moments when his raw talent shines through are sensational.

For a QB to walk into his first career playoff game and sling it all over the yard like that is rare. It’s special. It’s the kind of game plan, and expression of talent, that makes Williams unique. If this is only the beginning, we are all in for a hell of a ride.

Stat check: 49ers’ defensive success rate

Well after the injuries to Nick Bosa and Fred Warner — not to mention to first-round pick Mykel Williams and a couple others up front — the San Francisco 49ers played a Week 13 game against a hapless Cleveland Browns offense. It was Shedeur Sanders’ second career start, a fact readily apparent in watching him operate.

Despite all of its missing players, San Francisco’s defense played one of its best games all season. The 49ers held the Browns to just eight points. Rookie phenom tight end Harold Fannin Jr. scored on a 34-yarder in the second quarter, and that was it. The Browns struggled to move the ball for (most of) the rest of the game.

The 49ers finished with a 60.3 percent defensive success rate in a 26-8 win. The league average in any given game this season was 58.1 percent, so the 49ers’ performance was a hair above average in terms of down-to-down consistency. However, they had to play an offense as bad as the Browns’ to achieve that.

Fast forward to wild-card weekend, and a game against a star-studded Eagles offense. Down even more linebackers than before, the 49ers finished with a 58.7 percent defensive success rate Sunday, per TruMedia, about one-and-a-half percentage points off the aforementioned Cleveland game. When you compare the Browns’ offense to the Eagles’, however, it’s embarrassing for the latter that the 49ers could have effectively the same outing.

Philadelphia did pummel the 49ers on the opening drive, to its credit. Saquon Barkley hit an explosive run, and the Eagles marched down the field in 2024 style.

The rest of the game was a showcase in how violent the 49ers’ defensive backs could be — and a disasterclass by the entire Eagles offense. AJ Brown dropped three passes, two of them deep down the field and one on a critical third down. Barkley dropped a pass in the flat in the second half. Jalen Hurts was non-functional on anything beyond pre-determined deep shots and flat routes.

Part of me wants to credit the 49ers’ defense. At least in the secondary, where the 49ers are mostly healthy, it did feel like those guys (namely, Upton Stout) stepped up — they were impressive.

Even with that being the case, though, it’s hard for the overwhelming feeling to be anything other than disappointment at what this Eagles’ offensive roster amounted to in 2025.

Needle-mover: Tre’Davious White

White turned back the clock Sunday. The Bills’ cornerback finished the game against the Jaguars with three pass breakups. He was the only Bills player with multiple pass breakups, which is impressive on its own and even more so when considering White wouldn’t have started if not for Maxwell Hairston being injured.

What’s more impressive is how and when two of those particular breakups happened.

Let’s start in the middle of the third quarter. With about six minutes left, the Jaguars had a third-and-9 just outside the red zone. Jacksonville tried to get tight end Brenton Strange down the seam while holding White, the outside cornerback, with a deep comeback route by the outside receiver.

Jags quarterback Trevor Lawrence made the correct read and decision to throw to Strange against the Bills’ single-high coverage, but White somehow proved it wrong. He took a gamble coming off the outside comeback route completely to fly to the middle of the field and nearly pick off the pass. Were it not for White, that would’ve been a Jaguars touchdown.

Tre’Davious White has allowed a 43.2 passer rating (2nd lowest) and a 32.1 completion percentage (lowest) since Week 6 💪

BUFvsJAX on CBS/Paramount+
Stream on #NFLPluspic.twitter.com/xkEexJz4LA

— NFL+ (@NFLPlus) January 11, 2026

White later called “game” when the Jaguars got the ball back with a minute left in the fourth quarter.

On the first play of the Jags’ potential game-winning drive, the Bills played drop-8 man coverage with safety Cole Bishop as the robber over the middle. White matched up with Jakobi Meyers one-on-one. Meyers, as he often has since coming to Jacksonville, ran an in-breaking route.

White completely draped Meyers from start to finish on the route. At the top of the break, White stuck close and drove hard on the throw, working over Meyers’ back at the last second to tip the ball up into the waiting arms of Bishop. Ballgame.

Who knows whether or not White can keep it going  — it’s been years since he was a consistently great player. The Bills often rely on some funky, one-off game plans in the playoffs, though, and a veteran such as White can shine in those moments.

Scramble drill: The Rams’ defense is failing them

About six weeks ago, I wrote in this very column that the Rams’ cornerbacks were playing well in one particular fashion: The defense was designed to let them play top-down zone coverage and drive on routes in front of them.

The run defense was putting them into clear passing situations, and the pass rush was forcing quarterbacks to get rid of the ball instantly. That formula amounted to a dozen or so chances per game for the Rams’ small but aggressive cornerbacks to jump some routes and get their hands on the football.

What we’ve seen from the Rams’ defense of late is that it has run out of road with that approach. The Rams as a defensive whole still can get to those spots, but opposing offenses have gotten better at forcing the Los Angeles secondary to do … anything else. Rams cornerbacks don’t match up well in man coverage, don’t run down the field well and don’t reliably win at the catch point against bigger receivers.

For all their warts, the Panthers had the perfect offense to expose that — twice.

Tetairoa McMillan is 6 feet 5, 212 pounds. His running mate, Jalen Coker (6-3, 213), is a sturdy guy himself. By contrast, the Rams’ two primary outside cornerbacks are 6-foot, 180-pound Emmanuel Forbes, who flamed out in Washington by being too small, and 5-11, 182-pound Cobie Durant.

The Panthers spent most of Saturday’s game (as well as their previous matchup with the Rams) devising ways to get McMillan and Coker running down the field against those small corners. Some of those attempts came on pure vertical stem routes — go balls, comebacks, deep stops. Those are plays on which the big fellas get a chance just to body defensive backs.

Deep dig and big-over routes were also central to the Panthers’ game plan. The Rams’ defensive backs click and close well straight downhill, but they’re often a hair late firing to run with receivers over the middle. That’s especially problematic against receivers who are both big and fast, like the Panthers’ duo.

McMillan and Coker combined for 19 targets, 13 receptions, 215 yards and a touchdown in this game. They each also scored a fourth-down touchdown on a downfield play in the first matchup.

The good news for the Rams, I suppose, is that there aren’t many playoff teams left — on either side of the bracket — with a skyscraper pairing like the one they saw Saturday. The Texans have it with Nico Collins (if he’s healthy) and Jayden Higgins. Perhaps the Broncos do, too, in Courtland Sutton and Pat Bryant. Those are AFC teams.

At the same time, Los Angeles’ upcoming matchup against Chicago has some of the makings for a similar disaster. Rome Odunze is a well-built receiver, and tight end Colston Loveland can absolutely line up out wide. The Bears’ offense is built on all the deep vertical routes and crossers that trouble Rams cornerbacks, too.

If there’s anything that feels like an Achilles’ heel for the Rams at this very moment, it’s their cornerbacks having to do anything but jump routes in front of them.