NFC Notes: Jared Goff, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Caleb Williams, Bears, Lions

Bears

The Bears fired HC Matt Eberflus after their Thanksgiving meltdown despite the desire for stability with first-round QB Caleb Williams. Although this presents another unique challenge for a rookie, Williams is prepared to take on the challenge and feels the early adversity could help him in the long run. 

“It’s interesting,” Williams said, via ESPN’s Courtney Cronin. “I don’t get any say or choice over that. I have to roll with the punches. Like I said, it’s interesting. It’s tough.”

“I think this is a stepping-stone of development, to be able to have all of this in my first year. I wouldn’t say that I’m happy for it. Having these moments is definitely something that will help me in the future. Having these situational moments that it’s hard to rep in practice, having some of these moments, having your coach fired or coaches fired, and people being promoted. You know, things like that all happening within a couple weeks of each other, you know I think it would help me in the long run being able to handle all of this, handle this first year and being able to grow from it.”

• The Bears dropped its Week 13 game 23-20 with the clock expiring despite having a timeout available. Williams thinks he could’ve had better tempo in the game’s final drive: “I didn’t have enough tempo at the end of the game..getting the guys lined up, them seeing my urgency…I was moving well but not as urgent as I should have understanding the situation.” (Courtney Cronin)

Lions

Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown agreed with his coach’s aggressive decision to go for it on fourth down after they were burnt on their last fourth down attempt. 

“We knew all game we were going to go for it if it was fourth-and-close. That last one, I didn’t know if we were going to go for it or not, but he said we were staying in,” St. Brown said, via Michael David Smith of The Athletic. “If you kick it and you go for three there, they have some time to come back and win it.”

Lions

Detroit continued their aggressive ways regarding fourth down attempts, including a third-quarter decision that led to a Packers score and the conversion that was followed by a last-second field goal. Lions HC Dan Campbell explained why they felt they had to go for it and praised OC Ben Johnson’s play call.

“I just felt like we needed to end it on offense,” Campbell said, via Tim Twentyman of the team’s website. “I did not want to give that ball back and I believed we could get that. I believed we could convert, and I trust that O-Line, I trust David (Montgomery), and they came through for us.

“It’s a hell of a call by (offensive coordinator) Ben (Johnson). I knew how I wanted to play this game, the team knew it, and everything in me told me, ‘Let’s finish this,’ and so we did.”

Detroit QB Jared Goff said they were expecting to dial up the aggressiveness ahead of an important divisional matchup.

“We came into this game knowing we were going to do it a little bit more than usual,” Goff said. “Dan had mentioned that early in the week. He was really going to lean on our offense to make some things happen and be aggressive on fourth down if the opportunity presented itself.”