Why ending up on the Bears was a blessing in disguise for Caleb Williams

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Williams tried to avoid Bears — how successful will he be in Chicago?Ben Johnson on year 2 expectations for Caleb Williams

Carmen Vitali

NFL Reporter

Last year was an unmitigated disaster for the Chicago Bears. But it might have just been the best thing to happen to quarterback Caleb Williams.

It led to Ben Johnson, after all. It also challenged Williams both on the field and off, giving him a perspective he wouldn’t otherwise have.

Boy, did it challenge Williams.

Four of the Bears’ five total wins on the season came in the first six weeks of the season. They went through a 10-game losing streak and fired their offensive coordinator and eventually their head coach during the season — a first for the franchise.

Williams took a league-leading 68 sacks — tied for the third-most all time — yet still threw for the fifth-most yards in Bears history. The latter, though, is an indictment on the club more than anything.

Even worse, according to Seth Wickersham, author of the forthcoming book “American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback,” there were times when Williams was doing it all on his own last year.

Wickersham reported that Williams told his father he was often not instructed on what film to watch and that he would break down tape by himself. For as long as Williams played at a high level in college, not having guidance while trying to make the transition into the NFL as a rookie is coaching malpractice. Coordinators and quarterback coaches are there to continue a player’s development; to get the player to see the game how they see it, and therefore, how they game plan. They are all supposed to work together to come up with a way to win, week in and week out.

The good coaches devise entire systems based on their quarterbacks and their strengths.

Williams had nothing of the sort last year. It was evident from the very beginning, when it was Williams making every protection call, every pre-snap decision on his own. It was evident in how he held onto the ball and went off script more than he should. It was evident when Williams, you know, didn’t feel like he had the autonomy to call timeout at the end of a game on what could have been a game-winning drive.

The result was complete discombobulation, and it confirmed the Williams’ family’s worst fears.

“Chicago is where quarterbacks go to die,” Williams’ father, Carl, told Wickersham.

The biggest bombshell to come out of Wickersham’s report was that Williams and his father explored all options to avoid going to the Bears at No. 1 overall in the 2024 NFL Draft, including hiring lawyers to look into loopholes within the league’s current collective bargaining agreement as well as consulting Archie Manning, who infamously strong-armed his son, Eli, out of the Chargers’ organization in 2004. The Williamses also toyed with the idea of Caleb going to the United Football League, thus allowing him to become a free agent who could sign with an NFL club after his first pro season.

Caleb even reportedly expressed a desire to go to the Vikings to play for head coach Kevin O’Connell, after the pair had an enlightening pre-draft discussion. Being a division rival, forcing a trade between Minnesota and Chicago would be near impossible with Williams regarded as one of the top QB prospects in decades.

Another option was to make the situation untenable and make an enemy out of everything Chicago.

Only, Williams wouldn’t do that.

“I won’t nuke the city,” he reportedly told his father.

A pre-draft visit with the Bears then solidified Williams’ choice: acquiesce to the inevitable and go to Chicago.

“I can do it for this team,” Caleb said to his father. “I’m going to go to the Bears.”

Williams tried to avoid Bears — how successful will he be in Chicago?

You can imagine Williams’ chagrin then, as things quickly deteriorated last fall. That frustration came out, too. There were camera shots of Williams on the bench looking utterly defeated during games. He looked disengaged, rolled his eyes, laid down on the bench as the Bears suffered yet another loss.

But one thing Williams didn’t do? Give up.

He watched film, even when he was doing it on his own. He got up to the podium game after game saying he needed to play better. Williams didn’t blame his teammates, or his coaches for that matter. He remained perfectly polished and in control in front of the cameras publicly.

Privately, he was reeling. Williams would break down and cry during the season, according to an article in Esquire published this offseason. He’d never lost that much in his football playing career.

Williams threw for 3,541 yards and 20 touchdowns against just six interceptions. He finished the season with a cumulative quarterback rating of 87.8. Advanced metrics tell a more dire story. Williams’ total EPA, a metric his new coach Ben Johnson is very familiar with, was second-to-last among passers with at least 350 dropbacks last season, according to Next Gen Stats. The only quarterback who scored lower? Will Levis.

And Williams saw this coming. The overall sentiment after Wickersham’s reporting came out was that Bears fans, in a stark display of self-awareness, understood Williams and his father’s concerns. How could they not? This isn’t an organization that deserved the benefit of the doubt when, in their century-plus history, they’ve never produced a 4,000-yard passer. Their only Super Bowl win came on the back of arguably the best defense the league has ever seen. Their only other appearance was also driven by that side of the ball. If you’re the parent of a young quarterback, what about the Bears’ track record would have given you confidence they’d be the best place for your child?

The fact that Williams, as a 22-year-old, was able to navigate the entire situation as well as he did should give you more confidence as a Bears fan, though. Meeting with lawyers, consulting NFL legends, worried like hell about your future all while training for the pre-draft process and doing all the conditioning that every other player is at that stage? It shows so many intangible traits you want in the leader of a team. The time management that requires, the organization, the self-awareness, and most of all the maturity.

That is what’s impressive.

And now, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. So we think, anyway.

Ben Johnson on year 2 expectations for Caleb Williams

All that tumult in 2024 led the Bears to do things they’ve never done before. Instead of trying to find the diamond in the rough head coach (who comes cheap), or the defensive stalwart, they went for the highest-touted, highest-priced, offensive guru of a candidate.

Ben Johnson was coming off his best season as a coordinator in which the Detroit Lions led the league in points scored, among other gaudy offensive metrics (they were second to only the Baltimore Ravens in Johnson’s favorite passing EPA category). Johnson, though never having been a head coach, had turned down multiple offers the year prior to return to Detroit. He was the most highly coveted candidate of the cycle yet again and Chicago wasted no time locking him into an undisclosed but highly lucrative deal that is reportedly in eight figures.

They allowed Johnson to then bring in an experienced defensive coordinator in Dennis Allen, along with a few other coaching mainstays. General manager Ryan Poles didn’t even wait for free agency to address the offensive line (finally), trading for four-time Super Bowl Champion Joe Thuney and veteran guard Jonah Jackson. In free agency, they got the most experienced (and smartest) center they could in Drew Dalman and made him the second-highest paid at his position. They gave lucrative contracts to Grady Jarrett and Dayo Odeyingbo on the other side of the line of scrimmage to beef up the pass rush and run defense.

Most of all, they made sure Chicago was a place these guys wanted to be.

Turns out, everything Williams endured wasn’t for nothing. Dare I say, it could be the best thing that could have happened to him.

In his first practice open to the media, Johnson was as intense as advertised. Johnson yelled at tight end Cole Kmet for lining up incorrectly. He was hands-on with the quarterbacks, too. Even after practice, Johnson didn’t pull punches about the mistakes his team made during the OTA practice.

For someone who told reporters he wanted to be coached harder last year, Williams is now getting that.

Williams is also now getting the communication and messaging from his coach he was lacking before. Without prompt, Johnson addressed the Wickersham report with reporters last week.

“It’s come to my attention that the quarterback has been in the media the last few days,” Johnson said. “I wasn’t here last year, so I can’t speak too much about what it was like last year, but with my four months on the job, he’s been outstanding to work with.”

Johnson was confident, direct and even made a couple jokes throughout the session. His ease in front of the camera is something that hasn’t gone unnoticed by the beat given the contrast from his predecessor.

The Bears didn’t make Williams available to the media last week. So many times last year, Williams had to answer for his team’s struggles without much support. He aced that test every time. There’s no doubt he would have been able to ace this one, too. But he now has a coach willing to step in front of the firing squad for him.

In a place where quarterbacks have gone to die, maybe Williams now has the coach that can save him.

“I love it,” Johnson said. “I love it. I love the opportunity to come in and change that narrative. That’s where great stories are written.”

Carmen Vitali is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. Carmen had previous stops with The Draft Network and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. She spent six seasons with the Bucs, including 2020, which added the title of Super Bowl Champion (and boat-parade participant) to her résumé. You can follow Carmen on Twitter at @CarmieV.

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