Caleb Williams' Trick-Play Handoff to Joe Thuney Backfires on Illegal Flag
Ben Johnson dialed up a forward handoff to a lineman at the Patriots' 8-yard line. It was illegal — and it cost the Bears a scoring shot.
QB5 on our board with 7 total TDs in 4 games — fire him up regardless of gadget hiccups.
- Flag negated a 2nd-and-3 from the Pats' 8-yard line
- Thuney tackled 1 yard short on illegal handoff
- Williams: 1,020 pass yds, 5 TD, 0 INT in 2026 (4 games)
- Williams is QB5 on our board, 86 PPR pts this season
- Rule: forward handoff only legal to eligible receivers
Chicago had the ball at the New England 8-yard line, a second-and-three, and Ben Johnson reached into the bag. Caleb Williams faked a handoff to D'Andre Swift with one hand and slipped the ball forward to left guard Joe Thuney with the other. Thuney got tackled a yard short of the sticks — and then the flag came out anyway.
Illegal forward handoff. The rule is blunt: you can only hand the ball forward to an eligible receiver behind the line of scrimmage, and a left guard doesn't qualify. The whole sequence got erased, and so did a prime red-zone opportunity from a Bears offense that's been producing — Williams has thrown for 1,020 yards with five touchdowns and zero picks through four games this 2026 season.
Johnson owned it after the fact, telling reporters Friday that the handoff needed to go backward, plain and simple. He said the earlier version of the play had the ball hitting the ground instead, which in hindsight might've been the smarter route. His summary: shooters shoot, they took the shot, they missed, move on.
Did Johnson Really Not Know?
Here's the weird part. Johnson isn't a coach with a reputation for whiffing on the rulebook, which makes a missed illegal-handoff call hard to square. The play had reportedly been practiced for a while, so somebody on that staff should have flagged the legality of shoveling the ball forward to a lineman. It also doesn't appear Johnson gave the officials a heads-up pregame — the kind of courtesy that usually gets a trick play vetted before it blows up on film.
There's a more fun theory floating around: that this was a setup. Put a half-baked version on tape, lull everyone to sleep, then unveil the legal cousin of this play later in the season when it actually counts. Maybe. Or maybe it was just a mistake that cost Chicago points. Either way, the Thuney handoff is now officially on film, for better or worse.
For fantasy purposes, shrug it off. None of this touches Williams' value — he's our QB5 (No. 11 overall) and has piled up 86 PPR points through four games this 2026 season, adding 128 rushing yards and two scores on the ground. The gadget stuff is Johnson's playground; Williams' passing volume and clean turnover profile are what you're rostering. Start him with confidence and let the coach cook up the next trick on his own time.
