How Caleb Williams, Bears Can Emulate Houston Texans' NFL Breakthrough in 2024 (2024)

The 2024 NFL preseason kicked off with Thursday's Hall of Fame Game between the Chicago Bears and Houston Texans. While the game featured few starters and a serious lack of star power, it did give fans an early look at two of the most intriguing teams in the NFL.

The Texans exploded into the national spotlight last season, thanks in no small part to a historic campaign by rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud. After winning just three games the previous season, Houston took the AFC South, won a playoff game and watched Stroud become the latest Offensive Rookie of the Year.

Houston is now widely viewed as a legitimate AFC contender.

Chicago is hoping that by using the No. 1 overall pick in April's draft on quarterback Caleb Williams, it can experience a similarly rapid rise in 2024. However, it will take more than just a stellar season from their newest star for the Bears to become this season's NFL darlings.

Let's examine some of Chicago's biggest obstacles, what it can learn from Houston's 2023 season and the steps the Bears must take to be sitting where the Texans currently are a year from now.

While Stroud certainly deserves a lot of credit for changing Houston's franchise fortunes, the hiring of head coach DeMeco Ryans last offseason was equally important because Ryans quickly initiated a culture change.

The former San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator took over a franchise that had won only 11 games in the previous three seasons and still convinced his players to believe in themselves.

It wasn't easy. The 2023 Texans featured a lot of new players, including rookies like Stroud, Will Anderson Jr. and Tank Dell plus free-agent additions like Devin Singletary, Dalton Schultz, Sheldon Rankins, Denzel Perryman and Jimmie Ward. Houston got off to a 0-2 start to the season and was just 3-4 entering November.

However, Ryans helped to forge a roster that was ready to face adversity because he knew the work that was required to be a cohesive team and to be great.

"All teams don't work the same," Ryans said in November, per Zak Keefer of The Athletic. "A lot of people don't put the work in and just show up on Sunday. That wasn't going to be us."

That can't be the Bears either. Chicago has also added a lot of new faces this offseason—including Williams, rookie wideout Rome Odunze, Keenan Allen, D'Andre Swift and Ryan Bates. However, it's going to take work for Chicago to become the sort of team that Houston has become.

"Our guys are connected, they are a tight team and that's why I feel like we're playing better because of that," Ryans said in January, per Josh Koch of the Texans' official website.

Head coach Matt Eberflus must prioritize team chemistry and build on the rapport Chicago showed late last season. After a disastrous 2-7 start, the Bears finally gelled, especially defensively, and went on to win five of their last eight games.

A faster start in 2024 could have Chicago on a path to the playoffs, but it isn't going to happen if the Bears don't enter the regular season playing as one.

Ryans came into Houston like a gust of fresh air. With the Bears deciding to retain Eberflus for a third season, they aren't likely to experience a similar shift. Chicago does have new offensive and defensive coordinators in Shane Waldron and Eric Washington, respectively, but Eberflus is still running the show.

There was plenty of speculation that Eberflus could lose his job during last year's struggles, but he was ultimately retained after "extensive meetings" with ownership, according to ESPN's Adam Schefter.

However, general manager Ryan Poles has since shown a lot of support for his head coach.

"I believe in the guy, the culture here is strong, our locker room is awesome, the development of our players continues to move in the right direction," Poles told Waddle & Silvy.in May (h/t Gene Chamberlain of SI.com).

The Bears must continue to support Eberflus and his staff, even if that means publicly squashing any hot-seat chatter that may arise from a rough start or a particularly bad performance. There are a couple of reasons for this.

For one, Eberflus can't approach games as if he's coaching for his job. 2023 breakout teams like the Texans and the Detroit Lions were often aggressive in their play calling, and it gave them an edge. Eberflus must have enough confidence to take a similar approach when the situation calls for it.

Secondly, the Bears can't afford to have Eberflus lose the locker room—a very real possibility if players start to believe he's on the way out. Chicago instead needs its players to view their coaching staff as the sort of guiding force Ryans quickly became in Houston.

"DeMeco was the voice," Texans long snapper Jon Weeks said in November, per Jonathan M. Alexander of the Houston Chronicle. "When he spoke up, everyone was quiet and you listened to what Cap had to say because Cap was going to put you in the right direction to go get a dub."

The Bears haven't won a playoff game since the 2010 season, and they're not going to believe in themselves if they don't believe in their head coach.

As the Texans did a year ago, the Bears enter the 2024 season without having experienced much recent team success. One of the biggest challenges they'll face is learning how to win consistently.

The Texans added some postseason experience when they hired Ryans, who was fresh off coaching in the NFC title game. They got more of it from free-agent additions like Schultz, Ward and Robert Woods. They also played a role in the culture change.

"Just trying to set the expectation for this offense and this team, show them how to work," Woods explained during 2023 organized team activities, James Mueller of Chron.com.

The good news is that many of Chicago's offseason moves brought valuable experience to the franchise from which other players can learn. Swift, for example, is coming off a playoff campaign with the Philadelphia Eagles, while Allen is a six-time Pro Bowler who has appeared in the postseason three times.

Bates has appeared in the playoffs in each of the past four seasons with the Buffalo Bills.

Many of Chicago's key players are either rookies or have never experienced a true playoff push—Williams, Odunze, Moore, Darnell Wright, Braxton Jones, Teven Jenkins, Jaquan Brisker, DeMarcus Walker and Jaylon Johnson are among projected starters who have never played in the NFL postseason. Therefore, it would behoove the Bears to lean on the experience they do have.

That experience can also help rookies like Williams and Odunze have an easier transition to the NFL.

"I just think I'm friendly for the quarterback because I'll be in the right spots," Allen said, per Chamberlain. "I know how to communicate with them and my body language is solid too."

Williams is the new face of the franchise and is expected to be the catalyst behind Chicago's transformation. However, he doesn't have to carry this team on his own.

Thanks to experience, chemistry and great leadership, the Texans ended up providing Stroud with a better rookie environment than most could have possibly expected. However, Houston still wouldn't have been a playoff team if the quarterback himself didn't deliver.

While the Bears have plenty of pieces around Williams—including a bevy of offensive playmakers and a defense that ranked 12th overall last season—they still need the rookie to be as advertised.

To maximize Williams' rookie impact, the Bears have to allow Williams to play the way he always has. That means allowing him to operate with an attacking mentality.

"He loves to hang onto the ball, sometimes to his detriment, and hunt for the big play," per Derrik Klassen in his pre-draft scouting report. "While normally a sticky proposition for young quarterbacks, the consistency at which Williams delivers in those moments is astounding."

The Texans leaned into Stroud's aggressive style of play and uncanny deep-ball accuracy. More importantly, offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik crafted an offense that accentuated these traits.

By using a spacing-based offense, condensed formations, pre-snap shifts, a commitment to the ground game and play-action—all qualities inherited from Kyle Shanahan's 49ers offense—Slowik regularly got receivers into one-on-one coverage and gave Stroud opportunities to push the ball down the field.

Waldron's offense—which stems from the Sean McVay system—uses many of the same concepts that Slowik utilized last season. It can play to Williams' arm strength, accuracy and improvisational skills if the Bears commit to it.

What Chicago cannot afford to do is force Williams into a game plan that doesn't accentuate his top traits—something former coordinator Luke Getsy did for far too long with former quarterback Justin Fields.

Some teams may be content to use a conservative approach with their rookie quarterbacks, asking them to operate as game-managers while allowing others to do the heavy lifting. However, the Texans didn't do that with Stroud, and the Bears can't do it with Williams.

Amid all of the Texans hype, it's easy to forget that Houston came dangerously close to not making the postseason. They clinched the division in the season finale but likely would have ceded the AFC South to the Indianapolis Colts if not for a dropped pass on 4th-and-1.

But the Texans did win their division, thanks in large part to a 4-2 record in AFC South play. The Bears, who have won only four divisional games over the past three years, simply must be better against NFC North opponents if they're going to be a playoff contender.

Now, competing in the division, which features two 2023 playoff teams in the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers, won't be easy. Winning the division might be unrealistic, but if Chicago can at least notch a .500 record against the Lions, Packers and Minnesota Vikings, they'll have a chance to capitalize on one of the league's easier schedules.

Chicago faces the NFL's second-easiest overall schedule based on 2023 winning percentage (tied, .467).

Most of those games will take place before the Bears even start divisional play, which, curiously, won't begin until Week 11.

"It feels like a college basketball schedule, the nonconference games first," NFL VP of Broadcast Planning Mike North said, per Josh Schrock of NBC Sports Chicago. "It wasn't intentional, but also it wasn't necessarily something that we looked at and thought was unfair."

Of Chicago's first nine opponents, only the Texans (Week 2) and Los Angeles Rams (Week 4) made the playoffs last season. That gives the Bears a very real chance to be several games over .500 before they face the Packers in Week 11.

Of course, Chicago can't afford to overlook teams like the Carolina Panthers, New England Patriots and Washington Commanders. That may seem obvious, but unexpected losses do happen.

The Texans, for example, lost games against underwhelming teams like the Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers and New York Jets, which helped set up that pivotal Week 18 showdown with Indianapolis.

Because the NFC North has heavy hitters in Green Bay and Detroit, every win Chicago can pick up outside of the division will be critical.