Caleb Williams has more than 100 years of history working against him as he takes over as the new quarterback of the Chicago Bears. The Bears are the only NFL team to never have a 4,000 yard passer in a single season. They have also never had a QB throw for 30 touchdowns in a year. The best QB the in team history played his first NFL game at the start of World War II. To say the Bears have had miserable luck with quarterbacks would be a grand understatement.
Caleb Williams is already making Patrick Mahomes-like throws in Bears minicamp
The Bears finally have an exciting quarterback for the first time in forever.
Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
It was going to take a miracle for the Bears to ever have a truly good quarterback, and just landing the pick that delivered the franchise Williams almost qualifies as one by itself. The Bears earned the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft through a trade they made a year earlier with the Carolina Panthers. As Carolina ended the season as the NFL’s worst team, the Bears suddenly had the ability to replace Justin Fields with a brilliant QB prospect just as the rest of the team was building up in an impressive way.
You can make the argument that Williams is stepping into the best situation for any QB ever drafted No. 1 overall. Now he just has to prove it on the field.
As the Bears reported to minicamp on Tuesday, Chicago got a first look at Williams with the full team on the field. It only took him one practice to remind the Bears he’s everything they’ve never had at quarterback. Just watch this play:
Williams is much more a playmaker than a traditional NFL pocket passer. He’s special at extending plays and making off-balanced throws. This is everything you want out of a QB in the modern NFL, and somehow a franchise with a QB history as hopeless as Chicago’s landed him.
Williams creativity at times earned him comparisons to Patrick Mahomes during his Heisman-winning college career at USC. Of course, it’s totally unfair to compare any college player to arguably the greatest quarterback who ever lived. More appropriately, Williams feels like one of the first post-Mahomes QBs, a player who grew up watching Mahomes break all the rules before rewriting them himself. The game improves the game over time, and the greatest legacy for Mahomes outside of winning Super Bowls would be inspiring the next generation of great QBs.
Williams is just beginning his NFL journey, but he’ll have every opportunity to be successful. The Bears have two outstanding veteran wide receivers in Keenan Allen and D.J. Moore, and a rookie stud in Rome Odunze. None of this guarantees that Williams will be a franchise QB, but he certainly possesses the talent to eventually get there. The start of his journey just might be the most fun part.
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