Bears Open to Shifting Offensive Scheme to Unleash Rome Odunze's Strengths
Bears head coach Ben Johnson is evolving his creative scheme to capitalize on Rome Odunze 's contested-catch ability, giving Caleb Williams a vertical weapon built to dominate 50/50 balls.
Video Transcript
What's going on everybody?
Nicholas Moreano here from Roundtable Sports.
When you think about Ben Johnson's offense, there's probably a lot of words that come to mind.
Creative, unpredictable, explosive, and those would all be accurate descriptions of what Ben Johnson has showed, not only with his time with the Chicago Bears, but going back to when he was an offensive play caller for the Detroit Lions.
But one thing that Ben Johnson isn't or hasn't shown in his offense is the ability to allow receivers to make 50/50 catches.
This is something that Ben Johnson said following the week 11 victory over the Minnesota Vikings last season in November.
Quote, "Yeah, I'm not a big guy on 50/50 balls, to be honest with you.
You can look back and-- you can look at my track record of calling games, and we like to get guys open a little bit more than just throw it up for grabs.
And so that's not really what we want to be about necessarily."
Now, that was Ben Johnson back in late November, week eleven, against the, again, a game after the Minnesota Vikings.
One thing that Ben Johnson's offense is, is always evolving, and that is something that he talked about not too long ago.
And now the Bears are going to incorporate some of those 50/50 catch opportunities, and specifically for a guy like Rome Odunze.
Here's what offensive coordinator Press Taylor had to say about Odunze's training camp thus far and what he's noticed.
Speed, explosion, and this distinctive trait.
You see the contested catch ability that he has.
I think we've increased giving him those opportunities as well.
We made it a point of emphasis to try to push the ball down the field on some contested go balls because that's obvious- obviously a strength of his.
That's something we didn't feature much as a coaching staff last year.
To add to our offense and what we can do and experiment with certain things, we've given him some of those opportunities.
He's made his fair share of plays on those, so that's encouraging.
I go back to on August eighth, Bears training camp practice, where Odunze elevated in the back of the end zone.
There's a crowd of players around him.
Odunze comes down with the football.
There was another catch that he had with three defenders around him in one of the earlier training camp practices.
Odunze goes up and catches the football.
He was so good at that at Washington.
He was dominant at it in his rookie season with the Bears.
He finished with, as a rookie, a seventy-two point seven percent contested catch rate.
That was ranked within the top five in the NFL.
And that number really took a downturn last season, only catching seven of twenty contested catch opportunities according to Pro Football Focus, thirty-five percent.
Rome Odunze also had a fractured foot.
He also had just a bunch of different things he was dealing with, and that injury specifically, that impacted him.
But now he's fully healthy.
He said he feels amazing back on Ju- July thirtieth when he last spoke to reporters.
And now Ben Johnson opening up his offense, evolving, playing into his players' strengths.
That shows his willingness to maybe put ego aside, but also just play into what each player can bring to this scheme, this system, this offense.
To Caleb Williams.
And that for Odunze is 50/50 catch opportunities.
And now the Bears can add another element to their offense this season.
