Just like you wouldn’t want to be down 15 points going into the fourth quarter of an NFL playoff game, Caleb Williams didn’t want to be drafted by the Chicago Bears.
No one wants to be stuck behind the 8-ball, no one wants to take the relay baton in last place.
No one wants to be caught screaming on national TV at a wide receiver for running the wrong route. And no one wants to be the dad spending months before the NFL draft calling lawyers and the United Football League and exhaustively searching for ways to avoid seeing your son, the USC star, drafted by the franchise where “quarterbacks go to die,” as Carl Williams described the Bears.
But sometimes, despite your best efforts and loudest wishes, you find yourself in the right place at the right time – snowy Soldier Field, Chicago, Ill., 20-something degrees. On your own 43-yard-line, fourth-and-8.
Trailing 27-16 with 5:37 left in an NFC wild-card game against the rival Green Bay Packers.
Flushed from the pocket and scrambling left, leaping into the air like a second baseman turning two. Airborne and unleashing an off-balance throw – looking like Mike, Chicago’s original Jumpman.
Delivering a gorgeous, drive-extending, game- and season-saving 27-yard completion to Rome Odunze. It’s the moment in the biggest playoff comeback in Bears history, Caleb Williams’ incredible play, soon to be immortalized by Chicagoans in the form of memes and T-shirts and tattoos.
“He did that in practice, man; I’ve seen that before,” said Rams guard Justin Dedich, who was one of Williams’ offensive linemen at USC. “Obviously super-awestruck watching, but he makes those kind of plays. That’s just the kind of athlete he is. The way he contorts his body, it’s crazy because you don’t normally practice that stuff, but he reps it and the work shows.”
WINDY CITY WINNING
The 31-27 victory on Jan. 10 set up a playoff game against the Rams on Sunday in frigid Chicago, where perpetually disappointed Bears fans suddenly find themselves feeling differently, sharing in the audacity of hope along with Williams.
Kristine Breganio is a 39-year-old massage therapist in Chicago who has seen the Bulls and Blackhawks win championships. She has witnessed the White Sox do it and even the Cubs – but never the Bears. Chicago’s last Super Bowl win came in 1985, months before she was born.
But this Bears team, she said this week, has people all over the city “feeling a hopeful, reenergized energy … hopeful even about a Super Bowl appearance.” This squad has already accomplished the impossible, turning Bears fans into optimists, and not just about this season, but also those to come.
“These are the things that the high school kid, when I got to know him in the recruiting process, dreamed about doing,” said USC football coach Lincoln Riley, Williams’ coach at Oklahoma and then in L.A., where he won the program’s eighth Heisman Trophy in 2022 before being drafted No. 1 overall by the Bears.
“And now he’s getting do it.”
Call him Caleb Supreme, the 24-year-old QB who dreamed big. Dreams big. Williams thinks enough of himself to be himself, to keep his nails painted, to mimic crowning himself like LeBron James after big plays at USC, to graduate to his current too-cool-for-you celebratory shudder; the Iceman cometh, the Iceman runneth over.
He’s an elite athlete, the real thing, for sure. But he’s also an entertainer, a performer, a showman who will not be denied.
“It works for us,” Breganio said. “They call us the ‘Windy City’ not just because of the wind, but because of politicians talking a big game. We are OK with people being braggarts, as long as they can put their money where their mouth is. Show me somebody who works very hard, and the flamboyance, it’s fine – we’ve had Dennis Rodman before. And that guy did a lot of work for us!”
The numbers show Williams’ work. The Bears went 11-6 and he threw for a franchise-record 3,942 yards. He has accumulated the most wins as their starting quarterback in his first two seasons of the Super Bowl Era – and that’s after going 5-12 in Year 1.
It took a belief-testing beat, as these things do. Because as a rookie, Williams got sacked a league-high 68 times. The Bears lost 10 consecutive games. They terminated offensive coordinator Shane Waldron after nine games, and three weeks later, head coach Matt Eberflus too. And you know the pundits had a lot to say, going on TV to debate “whether Caleb Williams is the worst rookie QB of his class.”
OK, whatever. Williams is past that now, growing in Coach Ben Johnson’s high-level progression system. He’s been sacked only 24 times and though he has not managed to play mistake-free football – that’s impossible, Riley said – he has learned to limit the damage when mistakes occur.
“A lot of times playing quarterback, it’s minimizing your bad plays, right?” Riley said. “You watch [Rams quarterback Matthew] Stafford, like everybody, he has bad plays. His just aren’t very bad, that’s what great ones do … that’s making winning decisions.”
Last offseason, Johnson encouraged Williams to study Stafford, having gained an appreciation for the veteran QB’s vision and footwork and his availability to “manipulate defenses” from their time together with the Detroit Lions.
COMEBACK ARTISTS
And now, look. We’re getting a no-look passing, fadeaway shot-downfield-taking quarterback showdown that won’t be over till it’s over.
Last Saturday, Stafford, the Rams’ 37-year-old All-Pro and MVP candidate, just marched his team on a heart-snatching, 71-yard final drive for a come-from-behind 34-31 victory on the road against the Carolina Panthers – the 42nd fourth-quarter comeback, playoff and regular season, of his 17-year NFL career.
The Bears’ epic rally later that night was Williams’ seventh winning drive in the fourth quarter or overtime this season – late-game heroism that’s long been a trademark of his game, too.
In 2018, he threw a Hail Mary to win what was billed as one of the greatest high school games ever played: Three touchdowns and three lead changes in the final 29 seconds of Gonzaga’s Washington Catholic Athletic Conference title-clinching victory over rival DeMatha, a game that got highlighted on SportsCenter and “Good Morning America.”
If you missed that, Williams officially introduced himself as a freshman at Oklahoma, where Riley called his number with the Sooners trailing by 18 points against rival Texas and 6:41 to play in the second quarter. Williams went for 300 yards of total offense that October 2021 day – the most ever by a true freshman against Texas – in a rousing 55-48 victory.
“Past anything,” Riley said, “that’s a real skill, that confidence and that belief.”
Riley said he’ll feel torn watching Sunday. He has retained a wonderful bond with Williams, texting while their seasons overlap and talking longer when they don’t: “It’s been fun to hear the excitement in his voice,” Riley said. “To talk about what they’re doing.”
But Riley is also friendly with Rams coach Sean McVay and general manager Les Snead, appreciative of their organization and a fan still of his former players on L.A.’s roster.
“I’m like the parent with one kid in one school and another kid in the other,” Riley said. “We’re gonna be happy either way and it’s gonna be a tough day for someone else.”
Dedich is one of those “Projans.” He isn’t as torn, obviously, but he’s nonetheless quite proud of Williams, happy for him and hoping, if it’s not too cold, to swap jerseys postgame.
“Love that guy, man,” Dedich said. “I know last year was tough for him, so he seems like he’s doing better mentally. He’s so super-competitive, he hates to lose. Which you gotta respect, you know? Now his game has evolved to this kind of a level, which is awesome to see.”
Caleb Williams is doing Caleb Williams things, and doing them on the biggest stage, with the biggest stakes, as he expected he would, as he should. Right where he’s supposed to be.
