MINNEAPOLIS – Caleb Williams left the Bears locker room following Monday night’s 30-12 loss to Minnesota with a different gait.

The rookie quarterback was moving slowly and deliberately, clearly trying to use movements to minimize the pain he was going through.

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This isn’t meant to imply that Williams is hurt, but he got beat up pretty good by a Vikings defense that hit him often and hit him hard.

That included two sacks and three quarterback hits, plus some rough contact on rushing plays where Williams fought for extra yards.

“Yeah,” Williams said in his Monday night press conference. “I think I’ve got a couple bruises and contusions.”

You’ve had to imagine there’s one from a first quarter strip sack from Jonathan Greenard, who beat rookie left tackle Kiran Amegadjie and delivered a thunderous hit Williams never saw coming.

“For him, he can’t see the ball, see the defender coming, so I can’t expect him to be able to have eyes in the back of his head,” interim head coach Thomas Brown said. “Obviously, being on the road, the noise does have an affect when it comes to guys getting off on a snap versus us not.”

Williams has been sacked an NFL-high 58 times this season, with even more contact on top of that. Through 14 games of his rookie season, all that forceful contact can have a cumulative impact.

“I wouldn’t say mentally, but obviously physically,” Williams said. “Let’s put it in this context. Say you get in three car accidents in a month. You’re going to feel it. That’s what a hit is in football, if y’all didn’t know. Getting hit, especially when you can’t deliver a hit to somebody as in like when you run the ball, you take those over an amount of time and it builds up. But like I said before, got to do well with hydrating, do well with working out and all that, and stay to my routine. You know, it’s kept me healthy throughout the whole year, and got to keep going.”

Williams was caught on camera looking pretty worn out during this game. He was fighting like heck to keep his team in it, but the Bears fell behind early and never recovered in their eighth straight loss.

Williams is tough mentally and physically, talking a ton after the game about how he can recover quickly and get ready for the Detroit Lions on a short week instead of what he has gone through physically. He’s never one to wallow, and was already focused on what’s next.

“We’ve got to get going on this game plan for Detroit, I believe, in a few days,” Williams said. “So being able to correct and then move on very fast is something that we have to do right here, right now.”