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LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Shane Waldron’s first regular-season game as Bears offensive coordinator didn’t go great.

The Bears didn’t exceed 100 passing yards. There were good moments in the run game, though it wasn’t efficient enough. Those two things lead to an unwelcome stat.

The Bears averaged just 2.8 yards per play in a 24-17 victory over the Tennessee Titans.

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Yes, they claimed victory. But it was due to touchdowns from special teams and the defense, helping a unit that needs to get going as soon as possible. Winning without steady offensive production isn’t sustainable.

Caleb Williams draws lots of attention at the No. 1 overall pick and young face of the franchise, so his regular-season debut has been analyzed in detail these past few days.

The rookie quarterback has done so himself, and spoke candidly about where he can be better and why some of the accuracy issues in Week 1 are easily remedied.

Waldron said Thursday that keeping everything “clean” will be key.

“I think just playing with that good clean tempo, and we mentioned clean eyes, clean feet and sticking to that,” Waldron said in a Thursday press conference. “That’ll obviously lead to an improved accuracy on a couple throws here and there. But, like we said, we have seen him make all these throws throughout the course of practice, throughout his college career, and have all the confidence in the world that each week that will get incrementally better and we’ll be excited with what we see.”

Waldron wasn’t concerned about the opener in a way that suggest long-term struggles. It’s just about clean operations and have all 11 players on the same page.

“That’s the starting point for us,” Waldron said. “It’s something we are working to improve on each week.”

The Bears weren’t able to generate consistency required to move the chains and get to the plays and looks they planned to use. It’s difficult when you’re behind the sticks or forced into obvious passing downs. That’s why they looked disjointed against Tennessee, with six drives of 11 yards or less.

Struggles didn’t lead to a major offensive course correction. Waldon kept pushing this week toward improved execution, with an emphasis on cleaning things up.

The Bears haven’t yet declared their offensive identity, but they have a philosophy for how they’ll play that will be revealed posthaste.

“I expect us to be there sooner rather than later as far as what our identity looks like,” Waldron said. “We know we want to be an attacking offense. We want to be able to feel the tempo, feel the rhythm of the game right now, and then be able to maximize the usage of all our different personnel.” 

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