“When we go and play at a higher level, we know we get more runs called because we don’t have as many negative plays, we stay efficient with that balance, the marriage of the run and the pass. and then the finishing game mentalities come alive and you’re on second and short or you’re on first and 10, third and short and you can execute at a higher level.”

The Bears allowed the second-worst sack percentage in the league at 3.5 per game. Only Cleveland (4.8) is worse.

In terms of presnap penalties, they are tied with Miami for the league lead in illegal formation violations with six per 30 yards. They committed 15 false starts, two of the league lead. They also committed two illegal turnover penalties.

Penalties and sacks are intertwined, Waldron says. One can lead to another. Both put pressure on Williams and the offense to recover lost ground and give the defense an edge, leading to even more penalties and sacks.

Should the offensive line be where the blame goes, then?

“I know we all see sack numbers and we all just want to put them on the offensive line,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “But there’s an element of receivers having to run the right routes. We have to be exactly where we should be, especially if there is a hot element in the play.

“Obviously the O-line has to block it properly. The back must be in the right place. Tight ends have to pay attention to who is coming and who is not. The quarterback has to be active in terms of knocking over protections and all those types of things. So there’s a lot that goes into it than just the offensive line component.”

Then again, sometimes it’s on Williams for waiting too long to throw or sneaking into a sack. He did that in the last game.

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“It’s the ultimate team stat right there because every one of those plays, there are times when the quarterback gets the ball out (slowly),” Waldron said. “There are times when, if he blushes, he goes ahead and a throw is OK.

“And there are other times when a defensive scheme might hit home sooner than anticipated and you have to be able to play the next down (throw it). I think overall as an offense, the high number of sacks is something that we’ve started to hone in on and obviously talked about every week, but as it builds up, that’s a big goal of ours to to reduce that number, because it goes back to the second run, the third run, because of all the negative plays, the sacks are the ones that affect a drive and expected points more than anything. We work through all the different causes out there.”

Penalties make it easier for sacks to occur, and this is late enough in the season for an offense to repeatedly misline or commit false starts. Waldron admits as much.

“I would say with the presnap penalties, those are issues that we have to continue to work on fixing because they lingered a little bit longer, obviously, than what we’re looking for right there,” Waldron said. “So again, those are things that we’re going to address, we’re going to talk about, always giving guys why and then now it’s about going out and executing.”

Twitter: BearsOnSi