Coleman Shelton, Caleb Williams and being “on fire”, explained

Thanks to a combination of technology and need, NFL Sundays can generate some incredible “mic’d up” moments. With players having to communicate before every single snap, microphones can pick up some fascinating exchanges during every single NFL game, if not on every single NFL play.

The latest example comes from Sunday’s game between the Chicago Bears and the Carolina Panthers. With the Bears facing a 2nd and 10 just inside Panthers’ territory, rookie quarterback Caleb Williams stands in the shotgun and starts barking out the signals.

That’s when Chicago center Coleman Shelton does some barking of his own:

What might this have meant? Thankfully we have a potential explanation courtesy of former college quarterback, and current analyst, Nate Tice. As Tice pointed out on social media Williams calls out “32” during his cadence, which Tice surmises is the run tag on this play call. That is when Shelton starts screaming about “[bleeping] fire,” which is the blitz look that the Panthers are showing, off the left edge where Shelton is pointing, which would be right in the path of the potential running play:

Another former college player, former Stanford offensive lineman Sam Schwartzstein who now contributes to Amazon’s Thursday Night Football, outlines that Shelton was probably worried about running into that blitz, and trying to get all the Panthers blocked up:

But as Tice notes, Williams is probably not too worried about that potential blitz, because the play has a backside route called for fellow rookie Rome Odunze. With the cornerback playing off over Odunze, Williams knows he has free access on that route, and takes the simple pitch-and-catch to Odunze.

Rather than running into ... fire.