Wild article about Caleb from a reputable reporter. Grant Paulsen just doubled down on what others have said which is he heard Calbe wasn't the #2 QB on their board -- it was McCarthy after Daniels.
Our series on the Chicago Bears begins with a look at the quarterback. His coaches from 2024 open up on a season from hell. ("There’s no substitute for the work. That’s something he needs to learn.")
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The most dramatic spectacle of them all occurred on Dec. 26. His team was hosting the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday Night Football. Commercials rolled during a timeout, so nobody at home saw this poignant moment that perfectly summarized the 2024 Chicago Bears. In the wake of two firings, heartbreaking defeats, staggering to the finish line of an agonizing 5-12 season, interim head coach Thomas Brown tried to explain something to his starting quarterback and… no. Williams was not having it.
An auto-response kicked in.
As he had done many times to many coaches all season, Williams turned his head and walked away. Shane Waldron, before getting fired as offensive coordinator, used to stay quiet. Not Brown. Not a stern, blunt, old-school coach who believed this 22-year-old crossed a line of disrespect. The typically calm coach lost it. On the headset, another Bears assistant coach recalls Brown pressing the mic to finish his conversation: “Get your ass back here right now! Don’t fucking walk away when I’m talking to you!”
Unfazed, Williams sashayed away. Right back to the huddle.
The Bears lost, 6-3.
“That’s when you knew the world was coming to an end,” one coach says.
He pauses. He thinks back. The world might’ve ended that day, but in truth? All warning signs were obvious seven months prior. Outside the walls of Halas Hall, hype reigned. Tickets sold in record numbers when the Bears made Williams the No. 1 overall pick. No. 18 jerseys flew off the shelves. This glitzy gazelle in the open field was universally extolled as the charismatic, electric, dare we say
Mahomesian playmaker these Bears have lacked since inception in 1919. OTAs arrived, coaches unwrapped this gift from the football gods who’ve cursed this organization for so long and… yikes.
Williams struggled to execute elementary tasks. Every day was a new disaster.
That early, that
spring, the Bears changed the snap count to appease Williams. Instead of using a combination of colors and numbers like every other team in the NFL, the Bears reverted to a “Ready, set, go!” straight out of JV football because that’s what the quarterback requested. Aside from the obvious on-field consequences — defenders could tee off — the Bears were establishing a troubling precedent in allowing a rookie to tell them exactly what to do. Veterans couldn’t believe it. “Are you shitting me?” one receiver asked a coach.
When a play call was sent in, he’d stare at this wristband for a painful length of time. “Like it was in another language,” another coach says. Williams verbalized the call in the huddle, it was wrong half the time, and then players would be lined up wrong all over the field. Verbiage was truncated. Huddling was minimized. The playbook, dumbed down. The Bears offense devolved into an exercise of trial and error to fit whatever the USC rookie demanded.
All of which would’ve been manageable if Williams was willing to work. He was not.
For all the talk about wanting to be great, this new quarterback didn’t seem to have the desire. When he wasn’t storming away from a coach, he was telling veteran wide receivers how to run their routes before taking a game rep himself. In the meeting room, he barely said a word and didn’t pay attention. Coaches often caught Williams on the wrong page of the gameplan completely. He blew off film sessions and lifts.
Chicago made him a captain.
Games began.
Chaos reigned.
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