Caleb Williams is fully entrenched as the Chicago Bears’ starting quarterback, entering his second season with the franchise. However, if he and his family had their initial say, Williams might have been playing quarterback elsewhere in 2025.
Ahead of the 2024 NFL Draft, Williams and his family sought ways to potentially circumvent the draft process, going as far as consulting with lawyers to find a loophole in the collective bargaining agreement and weighing the idea of joining the UFL instead, according to the upcoming book “American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback.”
In a direct quote from the book, Caleb Williams’ father, Carl, told author Seth Wickersham that “Chicago is the place that quarterbacks go to die.” Additionally, Williams had also questioned his fit with then-Bears offensive coordinator Shane Waldron before the team took him with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, according to the book.
Other findings from “American Kings” surrounding Williams include the quarterback’s desire to be drafted by the Minnesota Vikings following a meeting with head coach Kevin O’Connell and considering an attack plan to get the Bears to trade the No. 1 overall pick. However, Williams relented on that idea.
“I wasn’t ready to nuke the city,” Williams told Wickersham of the possible idea of forcing Chicago to trade the pick it used to select him.
Ahead of the 2024 NFL Draft, there had been some rumors that Williams and his camp were considering ways to avoid winding up with the Bears, as he had been widely regarded as one of the best quarterback prospects in recent memory. Such a move isn’t unprecedented, but it is rare and hasn’t happened in recent years. John Elway used his baseball background to force a trade to the Denver Broncos after the Indianapolis Colts took him with the No. 1 overall pick in 1983. Bo Jackson refused to play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after the team took him with the No. 1 pick in 1986, opting to play baseball instead. In 2004, the New York Giants wound up taking Eli Manning with the No. 1 overall pick after his family expressed concerns over playing for the Chargers.
Eventually, Williams said that he’d be OK with ending up with the Bears during the 2024 NFL Scouting Combine.
“If I get drafted by the Bears, I’ll be excited,” Williams told ESPN at the time. “If they trade the pick, and I get drafted by someone else, I’m just as excited. Speaking about Chicago, they have a talented team, a talented offense and defense. For anyone to be in that situation, I think they’d be excited.
“I’m not pushing any agenda,” Williams added on the possibility of demanding a trade. “At the end of the day, the Bears have the last say. Regardless of how I feel, I’m not pushing an agenda of, ‘Yeah, I want to go. Or no, I don’t want to go.’ I’m excited for whatever comes.”
What will success look like for Caleb Williams in Year 2?
While Williams eventually warmed up to the idea of playing for the Bears, his rookie season didn’t go too well. He put up a respectable statline, completing 62.5% of his passes for 3,541 yards, 20 touchdowns and six interceptions to go with an 87.8 passer rating and 489 rushing yards. However, Williams was sacked a league-leading 68 times and Chicago’s offense ranked last in total yards. It was also 28th in scoring.
Amid those struggles, the Bears fired Waldron following their Week 10 loss to the New England Patriots. Three weeks later, head coach Matt Eberflus was fired following a devastating loss to the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving Day. That marked the sixth loss for the Bears in a 10-game losing streak, which caused them to finish the year with a 5-12 record after going 4-2 before their bye week.
As the Bears’ season went into free fall, Williams also had some troubles behind the scenes. He told his dad that he often watched film alone because no one instructed him what film to watch, according to “American Kings.”
Is all the pressure on Caleb Williams after Bears drafted Colston Loveland and more?
The Bears hired Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson to replace Eberflus as head coach in January, scooping up one of the top coaching commodities in recent years to help Williams in Year 2 and beyond. Johnson’s hiring, plus a busy offseason that saw the Bears remake the interior of their offensive line, has Williams “super excited” for the 2025 season.
“Being able to be in this position, being able to have a first year the way I did, ups and downs, and then to be able come in here, be as confident as I was last year or possibly even more and to be able to get here with the group that we have, I really can’t wait to get to work with these guys,” Williams told reporters in April.
“We’ve got a good group of guys personality-wise, and then obviously talent-wise, it speaks for itself, what some of these guys have been able to do, and so many key pieces that we added so far to this team. We’ve meshed well these past two days of introduction, and now today of our first workout, and [we’re] getting after it.”
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