IT’S TIME TO SIT CALEB WILLIAMS FOR THE SEASON, IF NOTHING ELSE FROM THOMAS BROWN

Only 20 sacks from the all-time NFL record — with four games remaining — the rookie must worry about his arm, knee and brain unless the Bears want a Trevor Lawrence head crash to threaten his future

The only remaining damage would involve Caleb Williams’ arm, knee or brain. Would you like to try, Thomas Brown? At this point in a Bears season of soul-shattering firsts — the Hail Mary, the Neglected Time Out, a head coach fired, an offensive coordinator fired — the one pain we haven’t felt is the hospital-bed barrage of the quarterback.

As the supposed franchise leader who seeks “immortality,” Williams played Sunday like he was Mr. Irrelevant, the No. 262 choice in the draft. His performance waned while Brock Purdy was brilliant in a 38-13 mop-up. If Brown wants to remain the head coach or surrender to Bozo the Clown, this is a crisis. In a game when the Bears bagged the first half and were outgained 319-4 by the 49ers — no defense, no offense, no strategy from a mannequin who made us plead for Matt Eberflus — Williams kept playing with less than five minutes on the clock. He was sacked on second down by Yetur Gross-Matos. He also was sacked on third down, for an eight-yard loss, by Gross-Matos.

Crumpled for seven more batterings and hit 11 times, he is approaching an all-time NFL record for sacks. He has 56 when David Carr was sacked 76 times in 2002. Four games remain when his number is the ugliest for any Bears quarterback in 54 seasons. Williams faces Super Bowl-type teams in Detroit and Minnesota, a non-rivalry slaughter in Green Bay and a home farce against Seattle when temperatures could approach zero the night after Christmas. Gee, how did the Bears prepare him for his first season? By dumping his face-frozen body in Lake Michigan? His performances rise and dip dramatically.

Who is he?

Will he survive?

“We got our (butt) kicked today,” Williams said. “There’s no way around it. We got it handed to us. Offense, defense, special teams, we have to come out and be better."

Only last week, Trevor Lawrence absorbed a savage blow to the head from Houston linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair. The Jacksonville Jaguars, prepared to dismiss coach Doug Pederson and hoping to draft Travis Hunter, ended Lawrence’s season by placing him on injured reserve. This would be a fine idea from Halas Hall, which has come up with few in recent decades. Williams is hapless on third down, when he is more liable to be harassed than completing a pass. Some of it is his fault; most of it is expected torture from playing quarterback in Chicago. It aches the heart after he lit up college football two years ago. And the front office cannot pay enough to Ben Johnson, which assumes he wants the job when he might scram regardless of what George McCaskey and Kevin Warren offer.

Tyson Bagent finally entered in the last two minutes and completed one pass. With a 4-9 record and an interim coach who thus far is incompetent, the Bears have nothing to accomplish. They can finish 4-13 and perhaps draft among the top six or seven teams, where more offensive linemen await, such as LSU’s Will Campbell. Without Eberflus’ “HITS” principle, for what it was worth, Eric Washington’s defense is a joke and needs professional help after Purdy threw for 325 yards and two touchdowns. The Bears have regressed far past the civic-driven goals of HBO’s “Hard Knocks.”

It’s time to fix everything beyond Williams, who continues to avoid interceptions and fumbled the ball away once as he was attacked by a rush that didn’t include injured Nick Bosa. He threw two touchdown passes to Rome Odunze. Even if Brown stays as the offensive coordinator, it was awkward of his former coach, Sean McVay of the Rams, to suggest he’d excel. Thomas Brown won’t excel in 2024.

Paul Brown wouldn’t excel.

“I’d start with what I kind of addressed with the team: We got out butts kicked,” Brown said. “There’s no other way to say it. We’re always going to be straightforward and honest and open about things that transpire. We’ve got to do a better job of putting in a better game plan on both sides of the ball.

“It’s a grown man’s business. There is no lay-down or quit in our football team. But overall, there wasn’t enough explosiveness on the offensive side and we gave up way too many on defense.”

And Caleb? Brown didn’t mention any thoughts about sitting him. “Going back to the slow starts. You’re behind … it exposes you to more sacks. He’s relatively always calm, cool and collected,” he said. “Obviously, he’s super-competitive. There was no quit or complaining in Caleb. I love and appreciate that he’s a super confident dude. We’ve got to find ways to be better offensively.”

When Williams took the post-game podium, he looked down at a cellphone and said, “Somebody is getting a call from Chris.” Can’t think of a prospective coach named Chris, though we do have Kliff Kingsbury. And forget about Kyle Shanahan, who shot down last week’s rumor: He would leave the 6-7 49ers for the Bears in a coaching trade. “I don’t want to be any place in the world more than here,” Shanahan said after the game. “You guys are gonna have to kick me out of here. There’s no way I’m making that decision.”

Purdy and cornerback Deommodore Lenoir spoke to teammates Saturday night. “The message was we need to play with more of a sense of urgency and play desperate,” tight end George Kittle said. “Because you just hadn't really sensed that.”

We haven’t sensed it from the Bears since Oct. 13. They were 4-2. They have lost seven straight with four more to add. And Bill Belichick, a frequent critic, appears headed to the University of North Carolina.

Sit the quarterback.

Or he’s next.

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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.