What does it mean when a young player has a tough year in a bad situation?

How does Ben Johnson replacing Shane Waldron impact Year 2 Chicago Bears?

I woke up pretty early this morning, as I do sometimes. I’m the kind of person who sometimes struggles to get back to sleep in the early hours, and I can feel refreshed after maybe just four or five hours of sleep, although I always try to get back to sleep because I know that refreshing feeling doesn’t last through a full day. My mind is ready first thing, but my body will more or less shut down for a nap this afternoon.

I sometimes do my best writing in the weirdly early-morning hours, though, particularly as it relates to those stream-of-consciousness pieces I like to rattle off from time to time, and many of you seem to enjoy. Somewhere between asleep and awake, refreshed but unencumbered by concerns that might normally act as writing speedbumps, I can go down my rabbit holes and tangents, and come up for air an hour later wondering why I’m still working on the first team of a 16-team TPRR piece.

This is that piece, as I woke up before 3 a.m., then couldn’t get back to sleep as I laid in the dark and decided a while later that my day was starting. And since I planned to get on my upcoming NFC TPRR piece today, I thought these early-morning hours could be useful. Instead, while working on the first team, the Chicago Bears, I got deep into a combination of things I didn’t want to start editing down to make it better fit what I do in the TPRR pieces. So, a standalone piece about Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze mostly, and some thoughts on the obviously linked, disappointing seasons of two top-10 picks. If you like writing that is a bit more focused, well, you’ve been warned that this is not that.

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The Bears’ season obviously didn’t go as planned, and there are competing impulses to 1) over-penalize young players for issues that may have been pretty situational, and 2) under-penalize poor performances that might have important signal because they can be credibly chalked up to coaching dysfunction. I don’t have a clean answer to that conundrum, and largely my argument will be we didn’t get clean information to start the careers of Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze, relative to most rookies, so the range of outcomes remains more opaque, with wider error bars.

However, one thing that is typically true is great players find ways to be great, and future busts do tend to struggle, and there are always things that are within individual control, and so it’s all a very complicated web. Even on that last point about individual control, I’m a pretty big believer that situational stuff can start to impact the stuff that feels isolated, like how Caleb consistently missed that hole shot throw between the corner and safety in Cover 2 that was there for him a half dozen times this year — and a few of those throws were not close, even when the WR was pretty open and he seemed to have a clean pocket, and as I wrote recently about Jayden Daniels there’s an important point about the guys who can consistently make the throws that you need to have — and yet even as that feels like an isolated Caleb issue, the poorly-conceived offense very likely made transitional things like feeling comfortable in an NFL pocket and getting used to reading professional defenses so tough throughout that I can’t say with any degree of confidence that Caleb won’t be able to make those throws in a meaningful way in the future. And a Caleb who can consistently make that kind of throw, in a better-conceived offense with a few more gimmes on the front end, is a pretty clearly successful Caleb Williams.

But probably it’s a little of column A and column B. In the other column, maybe you’re already talking about the Trevor Lawrence arc, where I wanted to throw out the whole rookie year due to the Urban Meyer catastrophe, and Lawrence has definitely gotten better and still may reach an even higher peak under Liam Coen — much like Caleb presumably gets a big bump under Ben Johnson. Of course, that hope after Year 1 that Trevor would take big steps forward with better coaching (and I do think he got decent coaching from Doug Pederson) hasn’t quickly materialized, and three years later, more of Lawrence’s shine has definitely faded in a way that argues you can’t just wash the stink of a tough Year 1 off because an incompetent coaching staff was replaced.

But then you look at Baker Mayfield, who is yet another No. 1 overall pick that is a few years on from Lawrence, and you see a guy who went through a really tough fifth year on two different teams — after four years of not-quite-enough that saw the team that drafted him move on — which led to not even clearly being the QB in camp ahead of Kyle Trask going into last season. Since then, no one has thrown more TDs than his very nice 69, and only Jared Goff — yet another formerly disgraced No. 1 overall pick reclamation project even further along in his career — has thrown more yards than Mayfield’s 8,544 over the past two seasons. And Goff’s a guy that actually did rebound from a really tough rookie season right away under a hotshot new coach, when Sean McVay took over the Rams and Goff went from a terrible rookie year to the Pro Bowl the very next year. By comparison, Baker looked like a hit as a rookie, and Cleveland’s issue with him seemed to be more that he plateaued, which I guess was also the Rams’ issue with Goff.

But the point is again twofold: 1) Development is not linear, and 2) The early-career issues, even when situational, did ultimately foretell some underlying limitations. We could throw Kyler Murray into this conversation as well, just to keep piling on the former No. 1 picks who aren’t clear busts but also haven’t necessarily been what their highest historical value suggested they might be.

Anyway, quarterbacking is complex and difficult, and I think getting the situational stuff is extremely important, but also there are young players that are just so obviously great that they immediately flash seemingly regardless of situational stuff. I’ve argued Daniels was that guy regardless of scheme this year, but that Kliff Kingsbury did a great job regardless. Drake Maye felt that way, and observers seem universally agreed his rookie season was a sign of greatness to come, despite the unholy trifecta of bad weapons, poor offensive line play, and an uninspiring coaching staff. C.J. Stroud seemed like that guy in 2023, as someone who just immediately elevated everything, though is story is another about nonlinear growth.

I gotta move on, but I actually leave this QB discussion pretty optimistic about Lawrence again, at least relative to feeling pretty bummed out by his 2024 after I made the case last offseason it could be his breakout year. The impulse there, the bias, is to be completely out on that guy a year later, like your analysis was bad and he can never be good. But to me, with Coen, that now feels like a classic one where I was maybe just a year early, and the whole point about Lawrence not yet having a peak pass TD season — and how he adds enough mobility that when that year does come, he could be a star — feels more valid now than ever, with Brian Thomas a budding superstar and Coen having just helped Mayfield to a 41-TD season. And I’m sure there will be some hype because of Coen and BTJ, but I also doubt Lawrence will ever get meaningfully pricy given we’ve all been there and done that. At worst, we’re talking the Round 10ish range, right? Probably a couple rounds later, especially in redraft? I mean, Caleb’s going to be the sexier of the two, but Lawrence is probably this year’s Baker as the late-round QB that’s just too boring to talk about enough to build hype but winds up a solid value throughout the offseason.

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I’d also gone on to write a bunch about Odunze before I decided to spin this post off into its own thing.

Odunze’s 15.4% TPRR is concerning, though at a 14.2-yard aDOT, he had plenty of air yards. Some of the production he did get came as a result of running the eighth-most routes in the NFL, an exciting sign in itself for a guy who was thought to maybe be behind the two veterans. His 1.18 YPRR is not a strong indicator of future stardom, and the fact is there are not a lot of stars who have come from this type of first year. That point really needs to be internalized, and probably more than Caleb, Odunze’s rookie year is a concern.

It also doesn’t mean the turnaround can’t happen. Nico Collins had a 1.24 YPRR as a rookie, then 1.68 in Year 2, before taking off the past two years (and though Odunze was a four-year collegian and Nico declared early, Odunze actually played his rookie year at a comparable and actually slightly younger age than Collins). That’s one recent example, but the optimistic interpretation would be Collins’ situation was really poor in Year 1, and while Odunze didn’t have Davis Mills, his target sample effectively could be seen as similar, because an argument for Odunze apart from a stale scheme that defenses had no issues with would also be that he just ran really cold on accurate target variance when he did get open.

Of course, even that stat needs context; I’ve pointed at off-target rate to make a pro-Kyle Pitts point in recent years, except I’ve come to believe that’s partially on him and that dude gets a high rate of off-target throws because he doesn’t seem to have the feel necessary to create the separation we want and need from receiving weapons, nor the ball skills to respond to a ball in flight in a way that makes a poor throw a catchable one. Think about the opposite end of the spectrum: Superstar WRs who are always open and can turn cornerbacks completely around when defended in one-on-one situations both earn more targets and they also make those targets more catchable because they consistently give the QB a ton of room to get the accuracy/velocity/timing concoction right. It’s not as simple as separation, is what I’m saying, but then usage and role and just good ol’ variance all come into play, too. And I do think Odunze was on the negative end of variance this year where the open plays just didn’t connect, and it wasn’t on him, because he was open, and it was that the throw just wasn’t there.

And he’s definitely not the only one from this offense who wound up with weird 2024 data. I wrote a lot about how Cole Kmet was a super young TE when he came into the league and — like a lot of TEs — it took him a few years to break out, but that he seemed to in 2023. But then in 2024, Kmet’s TPRR fell to a ridiculously low 10.5%, and his YPRR to 0.91. His previous career low TPRR was 16.1%, across four seasons, even those early age-21 and age-22 years.

D.J. Moore had a 20.5% TPRR but at a 7.3-yard aDOT, which was 2.3 yards lower than his previous career low. That was from his rookie year, as well, and during his prime he’s typically been comfortably in double figures for aDOT. In 2023 with Chicago, he was at 11.9, and he was way up around 14 in both 2020 and 2022, two of his final three years in Carolina. With his TPRR dipping, that brought his wTPRR all the way down to 0.47 when his career low since his second season was 0.59. That’s a huge dip.

And then Keenan Allen has the age factor as a mitigating note, but his TPRR was down at 21.4% as well, coming off a 27.5% year in 2023. His 2024 was his lowest TPRR since his rookie year way back in 2013, and multiple percentage points below any of his prior seven or eight seasons (dating to before the lost 2016 season with the Week 1 ACL tear where he only ran 16 routes). His 1.36 YPRR was well below his previous career low, and a full yard lower than 2023. After the talk of him being overweight in camp, it’s felt like he probably was just too old, but he had the most 20-point PPR games in this offense, including four of his five coming in the second half of the season, and the main reason Moore out-scored him was the same stuff with Moore’s low aDOT which was a healthy dose of quick-game stuff for DJM, usage I approve of given Moore’s skill set and something I wanted Carolina to do more of with him for years, but anyway that really helped Moore’s weekly floor as he racked up 98 receptions on a 70% catch rate that dwarfed his WR teammates who were both solidly below 60% due to Moore getting those very high-percentage short looks.

One thing you might be asking about the different profiles is who exactly earned volume, if all these guys were at career lows in TPRR, and the answer is yet again twofold: 1) We knew they were all faced with more competition than before and that clearly manifested where no one could consolidate; 2) Caleb took a bunch of sacks and also scrambled some and a bunch of dropbacks (and routes) didn’t feature a target at all.

But as far as Odunze is concerned specifically, you can make a case his TPRR was artificially suppressed both by strong competition and a QB who didn’t turn enough dropbacks into pass attempts, while also making a case his YPT was poor due to inaccurate passes when he did get open, and those two before- and after-the-target efficiency elements combine for YPRR, which means Odunze’s 1.18 number in that column does need a heavy dose of context.

And yet. Everything exists in a spectrum of uncertainty. Odunze’s profile would be a lot more appealing if that 1.18 number wasn’t 1.18, and as far as top-10 WRs go, the fact that he wasn’t an early declare and also didn’t have big production as an underclassman was always a minor red flag. The concern for this type of profile isn’t that he’d suck, but that he might top out as something like Corey Davis, who was the No. 5 overall pick after a ridiculously productive four-year college career but never became the superstar his big college numbers suggested, despite some very good years in there. Odunze very well might still have more ceiling, but the potentially he’s capped somewhere in that range is greater after his rookie year than it was prior, and that’s the kind of thing when you’re in, say, a dynasty league, you need to think about.

Smart dynasty players often talk about selling guys who had disappointing rookie years before Year 2 because you’ve suddenly taken on some risk of their value really falling off if Year 2 doesn’t go well, and also because they do hold value even if Year 1 is disappointing. So basically, the range of outcomes gets worse, with a little more risk the player is just a guy and not a high-end star, but while the player may not be quite as expensive, the pricing doesn’t necessarily change that much as the odds change, because people just see it as a buy opportunity. That type of move is probably something to consider for both Odunze and to a lesser extent Caleb, presuming you can get enough value out of them.

But we should be optimistic Ben Johnson is going to do quite a bit for this offense in 2025. And as long as he’s not a pumpkin of a coach, we should probably expect strides forward from Caleb and Rome, and as I said at the top we also don’t want to over-penalize players for issues that are pretty situational. This is where there’s always a bit of a science to things in fantasy, and there are a lot of analysts out there who make cohorts and then talk like that information is ironclad, and adding context would be akin to bias and faulty logic.

I’ve written this a lot of ways through the years, but that’s just faulty analysis, to me. As far as how I’m analyzing Rome going forward, I know the 1.18 YPRR puts him in some really unfortunate company, and I know the list of guys who have gone from that type of year to stardom is light. Like I said, if I had him in dynasty and got a chance to sell for nothing more than a small loss — definitely if I had the chance to trade for a similarly-value first-round rookie WR from this class, because even if this class isn’t as strong, the Brian Thomas or the Ladd McConkey thing would be great if you found the 2025 version — I’d make that kind of trade just to reduce the risk.

But I’m also not blind to the fact that Rome’s 1.18 YPRR needs the context I’ve discussed, and thus I don’t think it’s purely wishful thinking to say something like, “If anyone from this cohort could turn it around and still have multiple 2.0+ YPRR seasons, Rome’s a good candidate.” I believe that. He was a top-10 pick whose QB was supposedly generational and they both had terrible rookie years in a season where everyone got fired and the shell interim staff couldn’t even figure out clock management in key spots and then they hired maybe the sexiest offensive coordinator name on the market — and Johnson’s decision to go to Chicago when he seemingly had his pick of the litter and the NFC North is extremely tough also speaks highly of what he thinks he can do with Caleb and co. All of this adds up to not just wanting to throw out the rookie season, but a wide potential range of outcomes.

And I guess that’s what I described earlier. With Lawrence, I wanted to throw out the Urban Meyer year entirely, but probably some bad habits were created that Doug Pederson couldn’t fully correct, and we’re still waiting on him to not throw so many crushing red zone interceptions (one of the reasons I can still see it for him is the biggest issue still seems so fixable). Goff was long enough ago that I don’t necessarily remember my position, but I probably thought there was no way he could turn it around, and then even after he was traded to Detroit I do know that I still thought he was limited. And he may still be, but he’s definitely developed.

But there’s a range just with those two examples. Goff is the Year 2 example where the hotshot new offensive coach got the immediate turnaround, and the offense was strong for multiple seasons after that. Lawrence is the example where things got better but the statistical ceiling has stayed capped a bit. And then I guess Baker is the example where the situation wasn’t right for him until these past couple years, but he was finally able to have this stretch where he’s thrown for, again, 69 TDs over the past two years.

So it’s certainly not wrong to look at Ben Johnson and tell yourself that story. It’s also not wrong to be concerned about what we saw in Year 1 from both Caleb and Odunze. Decoupling player responsibility from the negative impacts of basement-level situational stuff at the team level is not really possible. I’d argue there are guys whose whole careers are impacted by years of this stuff, and they go down as busts but we never really knew the full truth. Thankfully, the Bears shouldn’t have to endure that, because we know the guy taking over is at least a competent play designer and schemer.

I’m hopeful Chicago will have a good 2025, and I’d be wary about taking too much from any of the 2024 data. But I guess the way I’d close this is to say that if we dropped a superstar young QB into that situation, I’d have expected more. And if we dropped one of the many amazing young WRs into Odunze’s circumstance, I think the same has to be true. The part about the 2025 season where Moore and Allen didn’t have great years argues there was more room for Odunze to make his mark as a true alpha than he was able to. Again, that isn’t to say anything other than if he was something different than whatever he will win up being, we might have gotten more positive information than we got.

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Alright, that’s it for this kind of weird writeup. I basically spent tons of words saying nothing, but I do strongly feel sometimes it’s important to argue that the other arguments that will be made are not things to get too focused on.

It’s feeling like naptime. Expect the NFC TPRR piece on Monday or Tuesday. Until next time!