To thrive in NFL, Bears QB Caleb Williams must learn to be quicker on draw

Here’s the biggest difference between college football and the NFL: speed.

Everybody knows NFL linemen are huge, massive, gigantic. They blew past the 300-pound mark soon after William ‘‘The Refrigerator’’ Perry stunned us in 1985 by tipping in at 310 pounds, maybe 320.

Now there’s Bengals offensive tackle Trent Brown at 380, Ravens guard Daniel Faalele at 379 and Titans defensive tackle D’Vondre Sweat at 366. And they’re just slightly above the norm for their positions. These men don’t have to try to hurt you; simply falling on you is enough.

For a quarterback, however, it’s speed that kills. The danger from blitzers and pass rushers who run 4.5-second 40-yard dashes is in the mix, yes. But getting injured is a risk to all who play the game. To succeed — truly — at the most important position on the field, a quarterback almost needs to forget about injury. He needs to pass.

The NFL rush is now so fast and the defensive backs so quick that all those pass patterns, routes and schemes that worked so well for quarterbacks in college suddenly explode into vapor. Which brings us to Bears quarterback Caleb Williams. Speed is what he must learn, download, overcome.

As the Bears search for a new head coach, this point should be paramount. Somebody — whether it’s the new coach himself, his offensive coordinator, his quarterbacks coach or another assistant — must help young Williams fully embrace the concept of ‘‘fast.’’

Williams is slow in recognizing developing pass routes. Not terribly slow but college-slow. That’s part of the reason he led the league in sacks taken with 68. Yes, the Bears’ offensive line is terrible. No question. But a quarterback should realize that and adapt. It’s an equation: Throw the ball or get plastered.

On average, it took Williams 2.92 seconds to release the ball this season, the eighth-longest among starters in the league. He likely thought his evasive spin moves at USC would dazzle edge rushers and linebackers. For the most part, they didn’t. Why? Because NFL defenders are way faster than collegians.

Some of us thought Williams would realize this change in speed from the get-go. On the first play of the second series in the season opener against the Titans, he did all his evasive stuff and was nailed for a 19-yard loss. Such a blunder is not just a problem in terms of lost yards, it’s also demoralizing. The Bears ended up with fourth-and-30 on that series and punted.

At the start of overtime Nov. 24 against the Vikings, Williams first scrambled for one yard, then took a 12-yard sack. The Bears never recovered. They punted on fourth-and-16, the Vikings kicked a field goal and the Bears lost 30-27.

Throwing the ball away, even intentionally grounding it at times, is a tactic that can be better than getting sacked. It’s telling that Williams threw only six interceptions, a commendable few, to go with those 68 sacks. But there’s an inverse relationship here.

In his rookie season with the Colts, Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning threw a league-leading 28 interceptions but was sacked only 22 times, 46 fewer than Williams (though in one fewer game). Manning chanced completions — and incompletions and pickoffs — over losing yards from holding the ball too long. Almost 5% of his passes in 1998 were intercepted, but he lost only 109 yards on sacks. Williams lost 466 yards.

So far in the playoffs, rookie and young quarterbacks have been a mixed bag. Broncos rookie Bo Nix helped get his average team into the postseason, only to be outclassed by the Bills 31-7. Nix threw 12 interceptions this season but was sacked only 24 times.

The Packers’ Jordan Love, in his second season as a starter, threw three interceptions and no touchdown passes and finished with a dreadful 41.5 passer rating in a 22-10 loss to the Eagles. Not good.

Then there was Commanders rookie Jayden Daniels. This slender, heady quarterback had a season comparable in numbers to Nix and, except for sacks, Williams. But Daniels seems to understand a little better the catch-up speed of defenders. On Sunday, his Commanders beat the Bucs 23-20 to advance in the playoffs. Remember, the Bears could have drafted Daniels or Nix last spring.

Right now, Williams’ passer rating of 87.8 isn’t that much better than those of predecessors Mitch Trubisky(86.0) and Justin Fields (83.9). Williams is only 23 and figuring it out. He just needs to do it fast. And he needs help.