NFL Network’s Stacey Dales: What Caleb Williams Must Do to Level Up as a QB

The next step for Caleb Williams is not a highlight. According to Stacey Dales, it might actually be boring, and that is the point.

The setup came from guest host Seth Rollins, who framed the adjustment Williams made in year one. The way Ben Johnson asks him to play quarterback is nothing like what he did at USC. Williams played out of shotgun, was not running much play action, and was rarely turning his back to the defense. Yet a lot of Chicago's biggest plays last season were designed off play action, including the deep bomb to DJ Moore that won a game in overtime late in the year.

So what is the next evolution? Dales had a two-word answer.

"The chain game," she said.

She reached for basketball to explain it. Your inside game is only as good as your outside game, and your outside game is only as good as your inside game. When you have both and you can defend, that is the whole sport. The football version is the same idea.

Her example of the ceiling and the limitation came in the same breath. Dales made a point of saying she loves Josh Allen and called him dynamic and brilliant, with something like 39 total touchdowns last season, a lot of them on the ground on designed runs. But the play that sticks with her from Buffalo's playoff loss is Allen launching a huge prayer downfield.

The contrast was Matthew Stafford in the playoffs at Soldier Field against the Bears, playing the chain game, throwing the outside route to Davante Adams that ended with a toe tap on the sideline.

"That is a standard perfect throw," Dales said, while the Bears fans in the room relived the heartbreak in real time.

Stafford was the MVP. Allen is always going to have a chance to be the MVP. Dales was not knocking either one. Her argument is about what it takes to get to the final weekend.

"When you get to a point in this league where you're in overtime and you're playing the chain game to that level, you're going to the NFC Championship or the AFC Championship," she said. "And I think I want to see Caleb do that."

That means manipulating the defense and playing at every level, the intermediate stuff as much as the long shots, because the long shots open up when the underneath work is honest. Dales pointed at the weapons who benefit most from that patience.

"Check that thing down to Colston in space. Check that down to Luther in space," she said. "Luther Burden's a dog, man."

The part of her answer that reveals how she watches the game is what comes next. Dales believes the payoff is fourth down, and specifically the willingness to stay on the field on fourth down, because that only happens when the trust is fully built between coach and quarterback.

She described the version of it she wants to see. Johnson can tell Williams to go ahead and throw it. Or a call comes in and Williams already knows it, because they drew that up in practice.

"How many times I heard that last season," Dales said. "We drew that up in practice. It's good stuff."

By the end, Rollins was not hiding anything.

"I'm getting excited about it," he said. Somebody noted it had gotten awfully quiet on the other side of the room. Rollins did not care. They were locked in.