Bears Must Clean up This Part of Their Offense After the Bye Week

The Chicago Bears didn't give the football away a lot last season, finishing No. 1 in the NFL with just 11 turnovers. 

Head coach Ben Johnson has always emphasized the importance of limiting those critical mistakes. For Bears quarterback Caleb Williams, one of his goals going into the 2026 season was "keeping the turnover rate low," something he mentioned in mid June. 

Prior to the Bears' Sunday Night Matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Williams had just one turnover in five games played. The third-year quarterback threw four interceptions in the 27-24 win over the Buccaneers. 

“It’s frustrating," Williams said. "Two of them I tried to throw away, one of them I made a dumb decision, and then the last one got tipped up in the air. You go back and look at what could I have done. I think on one of them I could have just tossed the ball to (TE) Colston (Loveland) on the left side, instead of falling out and trying to throw an incompletion. Throwing it away. But the other one, got to juice it in there on the last one to (WR) Luther (Burden III). The one earlier, got to just check it down. Wasn’t the right coverage and made a bad decision. And that happens, and so you learn from it. And then the other one was also the same thing. Same pressure, and then just try to get the ball out and try to be the big eraser. That’s what I’ve been, that’s what I will be, and keep doing that, being a big eraser.”

What Williams means by "big eraser" is the ability to fix broken plays when the defense has a clear advantage. The Buccaneers erased that ability on Sunday night, and Tampa Bay also forced wide receiver Luther Burden III to fumble late in the fourth quarter, capitalizing on the turnover that led to the game being at 24. 

After a five turnover day, the Bears have 17 giveaways on the season -- tied for the second-most in the NFL with the Atlanta Falcons and Indianapolis Colts. Only the Los Angeles Chargers and New England Patriots have more giveaways (19). 

Chicago's eight fumbles are also tied for the second-most in the league. 

The Bears still have eight games remaining this season, so Johnson's offense will have to clean up the mistakes to ensure that number doesn't climb any higher. But the team will take the Week 9 matchup as a learning experience for the remainder of the 2026 NFL season. 

“I think when you look at the four interceptions, there were a couple where we didn't see the coverage quite as well as we would have liked, and there are a couple where we're making attempts to avoid disaster, and we didn't quite do what we needed to do with the ball in terms of burning it and living on for the next play. I know he was trying to dirt or throw away a couple of those, and we just have to do a better job of getting that job done. The other one is just the coverage recognition part of it. That's what a (Buccaneers Head Coach) Todd Bowles defense is known for, and they can make it challenging, so they'll be good ones for us to put in our memory bank and draw from next time we go against a team like that.”