Caleb Williams and his father sought to prevent Williams from being written by the Chicago Bears in the NFL 2024 draft, details of Seth Wickersham d’Espn in a new book on quarters, publishing in September.
“Chicago is the place that the quarter-backs will die,” said Williams’ father Carl, in the book.
Williams being the clear superior choice out of the USC, Carl told several agents in 2024 that he did not want his son to play for the Bears, who had the choice n ° 1. Part of his efforts to avoid Chicago included the Archie Manning council, father of Eli Manning, who helped orchestrate Eli’s trade in San Diego at the Giants of New York.
According to the book, Williams decided that he wanted to be drafted by the Vikings of Minnesota after being connected with the Vikings coach, Kevin O’Connell, at the NFL Scouting combines, but the director general of the Bears, Ryan Pola, told Williams that Chicago would write it “whatever.”
Williams was also dissuaded by Chicago coaches. “Do I want to go there? I don’t think I can do it with (the former offensive coordinator of the Bears Shane) Waldron,” said Williams in the book.
Wickersham wrote that the father and the son planned to publicly attack the organization of the Bears and the city of Chicago to avoid writing there, but Williams was concerned that this would only do damage if the Bears refused to exchange it.
Williams then changed his mind on the Bears after a pre-project meeting, according to the book.
“I can do it for this team,” Caleb told his father. “I’m going to go to the Bears.”
The Bears refused to comment on the details of the book on Williams and the project.
Williams then had a recruited season from top to bottom, completing 62.5% of his passes while launching 20 affected, but also taking 68 bags of league.
Waldron and head coach Matt Eberflus were both licensed in the middle of the season, and according to the book, Williams was sometimes not a coach.
“No one tells me what to watch,” Williams told his father in the book on cinema sessions. “I light it.”
Can things change for Chicago?
The way in which Williams’s recruit has proven proved that family’s concerns were premonitory. Waldron will be one of the worst hires in the history of the franchise, and it is a high bar given the recent futility of the Bears, because they are on their fifth head coach from the Lime of Lovie Smith.
It was obvious from the Waldron opening press conference, followed by a plethora of hiccups during spring and summer practices, that this twinning was not going to flourish. The Polish decision, the president / chief executive officer, Kevin Warren and President George McCaskey, to keep Eberflus, are now back under fire, because Eberflus had the ultimate call on Waldron as his call.
What was done quite was to put Williams in the same situation as him and his father wanted to avoid. It is the third quarter of the first round to learn a brand new attack with a brand new coach staff after their recruit season in the past seven years, joining Mitch Trubisky and Justin Fields.
The most worthy element of this extract – and I am interested in reading the full chapter of Williams this fall – is the quarterrier itself felt and its own concerns concerning the Bears. Fans could feel comforted that Williams had decided, after his visit, that he wanted to take up the challenge.
We were able to hear Williams next week, when the Otas Bears take place, and he could have to answer many more questions about the past than the present. Williams managed the controversy very well under the spotlight. He is quite imperturbable publicly, and I expect it to continue, but I will be curious to know how he wants to tackle these hesitations he had.
This brings us to a possible blessing disguised in all of this. If Ben Johnson turns out to be the right rental for Williams and the organization, and if he is able to help put Williams able to be a quarter of the franchise that the Bears have sought, then the disaster that was in 2024 will be a footnote. Everything that went wrong put the Bears in a position to reset with Johnson.
Here is what Williams said at the Johnson’s introductory press conference: “Once I took off, I was driving on the highway, I don’t know if it was sure or not, but I gave a strong cry and a fair excitation to just bring clarity to the offseason,” he said. “It brings a lot of different things to the offseason. And I am really excited by the Bears and this organization and that I can get there and keep Ben Johnson as a coach for a long time. “
Maybe it was a year too late, but the timing is not important as long as the coach and the quarter succeeded. If anything, Johnson has a plan of what should not be done. – Kevin Fishbain, writer Bears Beat
(Photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
