Progress isn’t always linear. Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams is experiencing that firsthand this season.

Williams put together some of his lowest numbers of the season Sunday in the Bears’ win over the New Orleans Saints as head coach Ben Johnson relied on the running game. He threw for a season-low 172 yards, a 57.7% completion rate and a 61.7 quarterback rating to go along with an interception and no touchdowns.

The letdown came after a good three-game stretch by Williams. He aired it out and put on a season-best performance against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 3 before leading Chicago to back-to-back, game-winning drives on its last possessions. Williams now will try to get the trajectory moving back upward when the Bears travel to play the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday.

Here are three areas Williams should focus on Sunday against the Ravens.

Accuracy and timing

One of the biggest reasons why Williams had season-low statistics Sunday is pretty simple: He missed his receivers.

Williams’ completion rate has gone down during the Bears’ four-game winning streak. He finished with a season-high 67.9% against the Cowboys before throwing for 59.5% and 58.6% against Raiders and Commanders, respectively. Some of it came down to timing. Williams holds the ball the longest in the NFL, according to Next Gen Stats, averaging 3.17 seconds.

Bears head coach Ben Johnson said Williams’ ability to scramble probably augments the time a bit. But Williams needs to rely on his footwork to go through his progressions, something they’ve worked on all offseason.

“There’s times where we’re really good at it and there’s other times where we maybe are either too fast or we’re too slow, and so we’re working through that,” Johnson said. “I think we’re learning from it, as well. But, yeah, it’s still a work in progress.”

Williams said the incompletions bother him more than interceptions because misses mean he didn’t throw a good enough ball for the receiver to make a play. But he also said the passing offense is extremely close to finding a rhythm, and it starts with him getting it there.

“It’s a collective thing, but it starts with me and we’ve been getting better with on-the-run efficiency passing-wise, and then in the pocket we’ve been pretty solid,” Williams said. “If we start hitting those on-the-runs, it opens up the offense because those second plays become big explosive plays after the defense called maybe the perfect defense, or maybe something happened up front, and if we start hitting on those and big plays start happening, it looks a lot better than it did last week.”

Red zone execution

Chicago used different ways to pull out games during their four-game winning streak. But some of the games didn’t need to be so close.

Some were closer because of the Bears’ inefficiency in the red zone, which included Williams. Chicago has scored a touchdown on 50% of its red zone trips according to Pro Football Reference, tied for 21st in the NFL; the Philadelphia Eagles lead the league at 82.4%.

Johnson said that some of the inconsistency comes from players not seeing the same thing from the defense when they’re on the field and a lack of practice. The Bears usually install red zone plays later on in the week and only get one repetition of a play. So when there’s confusion on what they see, there’s a lack of execution.

“There’s been a few of those where the defense hasn’t given us the coverage we wanted or, you know, we simply haven’t done a good job progressing to the next fast enough,” Johnson said. “That’s something Caleb’s learning. I think he’ll be better there. As always, we need to be efficient running the ball down there. I think it usually starts with that.”

Williams has been middle-of-the-pack passing the ball inside opponents’ 20-yard lines, completing 58.3% of his passes for 70 yards with four touchdowns and one interception. But the numbers dramatically improve once the Bears are inside the 10. He has completed all five of his pass attempts for 24 yards and four touchdowns.

Fixing the passing and running red zone results comes down to better execution for Williams. With less space to work with, linebackers and safeties don’t have to drop as much in the pass game. Williams needs to hit his spots in order to score.

“We’re dialing those things in and we’ve been pretty good, but we can be a whole lot better with the players we have and obviously head duck,” Williams said.

Running it more

Through six games, Williams hasn’t fully taken advantage of his athleticism to move the ball down the field. He has an innate ability to escape pressure and keep plays alive, but often hasn’t turned a scramble into a run.

Williams has averaged 17.7 rushing yards per game, down from 28.8 during his rookie season. He opened the season with 58 rushing yards against the Minnesota Vikings, but hasn’t rushed for more than 13 yards in a game since Week 2. Williams had minus-2 rushing yards in each of his past two games.

The Bears don’t want to take away Williams’ talent for escaping pressure and making dazzling plays. It comes down to understanding the situation of when to take the free yards for Williams.

“It’s just being able to understand in those situations that even if I’m not hitting or anything like that, how a quarterback run in those situations where maybe the defense calls a good call or a perfect call or whatever the case may be, the quarterback takes off and gets positive yards, I think I’ve done a good job with that so far this year,” Williams said. “I think [Sunday] I did not.”

Baltimore has allowed some versatile quarterbacks to put up some yards against them in six games. Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen opened the season with 30 rushing yards against the Ravens, and Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud rushed for the same amount in Week 5. The Ravens did limit Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes to 5 yards.

“There’s times where we’re really good at it and there’s other times where we maybe are either too fast or we’re too slow and so we’re working through that. I think we’re learning from it as well. But, yeah, it’s still a work in progress.”

Failing to take advantage of what defenses give the Bears is part of why Johnson believes the Bears’ offense hasn’t reached its full potential yet. Williams converting on some runs instead of trying to force a pass should help Chicago get there.

“If we can just stay on schedule, stay on track, then this thing is gonna come to life,” Johnson said. “We’ve got some really talented players in every position room. And so, yeah, I would like to just be more efficient as an offense.”