Bears QB Caleb Williams addresses controversy from book excerpt

Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams sought to quiet the controversy about how he didn’t want to come to his current team prior to the 2024 NFL Draft.

In an ESPN story about an upcoming book by Seth Wickersham on quarterbacks, Williams admitted it was true that he did like the idea of going to the Minnesota Vikings initially, but this was prior to his first visit to Chicago. Then, Williams said, he wanted to be with the Bears.

“Yeah, I had a good visit at the other place — Minnesota, with [coach] Kevin O’Connell,” Williams said. “Good staff and all of that obviously. He just won the Coach of the Year Award and things like that. Obviously, good staff and things like that.

“But something that keeps getting lost — something that keeps getting, I think, not being addressed the way it needs to be — is the fact that I went on that visit first, came (to Chicago) and then after I came here, I went back home and talked to my dad.”

His comment to his father, Carl Williams, was that he wanted to play for the Bears and become the quarterback who led them out of a history of struggling signal-callers.

“This whole storm that happened, it wasn’t something that we wanted to have happen at this point,” Williams said during a news conference Wednesday during the Bears’ Organized Team Activities. “We’re focused on the present, we’re focused on now, we’re focused on trying to get this ship moving in the right direction. And I think so far that’s what we’ve been doing.

“But for this to come out, it’s been a distraction.”

The book, “American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback,” looks at many QBs, but Williams’ part details how he and his father thought about the possibility of finding a way to circumvent the NFL draft in 2024 to avoid coming to Chicago. Williams labeled any of the early discussions as mere thoughts, not actions.

“Those are thoughts that go throughout your head in those situations,” Williams said. “All of those are thoughts. And then, after I came on my visit here, it was a deliberate answer and deliberate and determined answer that I had is that I wanted to come here.”

The Bears quarterback saw most of what had been written as ancient history, but did label one aspect of an ESPN story on the book as false or misinterpreted. It was a claim he didn’t know how to watch film and the Bears staff under former coach Matt Eberflus failed to help him.

“So that was a funny one that came out, that in context, in how that was trying to be portrayed, didn’t get portrayed that way,” Williams said. “It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to watch film, it was trying to figure on the best ways and more efficient ways.”

Williams expects new coach Ben Johnson will make a difference in his film watching.

“He’s been in this offense for six years,” Williams said. “He’s really been on top of it, and we’re really only trying to catch up. I’m only trying to catch up to him and be on top of the details as much as possible.”

Williams said his father’s input was valued and always is, but in the case of the book he probably went too far or wasn’t entirely clear with some comments made.

“Definitely a grown man, I shut him down quite a lot just because, in season and out of season, it’s something you have to do,” Williams said. “He cares so much about me and my future, and we have been along this journey so long together. All he wants is the best for me.

“So if anything happens, and he’s super-hot-headed, it’s more of like ‘All right, go ahead and go away. Go reset.’ Things like that. Love (my father) to death and things like that, super fortunate to have him. We have talked about it. Understanding that there’s a right place and a right time and there are times that there is not.”

The book is scheduled to be released Sept. 9, a day after the Bears open the season against the Vikings in a home Monday night game to be televised by ESPN.

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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