Here we go again, Chicago Bears fans. That old fear is back.
The fear that this team got it wrong again. With every chance to get it right. With the No. 1 overall pick in their clutches and the choice of
any of the three top QBs in the 2024 before them.
It was hard enough last year when Jayden Daniels’ Rookie of the Year campaign took the NFL by storm and the Washington Commanders to the NFC Championship game. But to an extent, you knew it wasn’t the same situation. After all, how could you expect Williams, a mere rookie, to overcome Matt Eberflus and the unrivaled dysfunction of the 2024 Chicago Bears from top to bottom? Besides, Daniels has been hurt and not nearly as groundbreaking this season, taking some of the bloom off that rose.
But what’s happening now might be worse.
Because Drake Maye, the No. 3 pick in last year’s draft, is legitimately a top-five quarterback in the NFL as we speak. He might even be the favorite for MVP at the moment, leading the bottom-dwelling New England Patriots to a surprising 6-2 start. He’s the best deep passer in the league and is second in the NFL in passer rating behind only Lamar Jackson. He’s doing things even the Patriots have never seen before from a quarterback, and this is the franchise that employed Thomas Edward Patrick Brady Jr. for 20 years. He just finished lighting up the vaunted Browns defense—his biggest test of the year—for three touchdowns.
And he was right there for the taking if the Bears wanted him.
Did Ryan Poles really laugh him off the screen during the pre-draft process? If he did, I doubt he’s laughing now.
But beyond all that, Maye is also on his second head coach and offensive coordinator in as many seasons. He also endured a complete mess in 2024 under Jerod Mayo, who simply wasn’t ready to be an NFL head coach yet and showed it. Plus, Maye unquestionably had a worse roster around him than Williams did as a rookie, though horrible coaching has a way of wasting good talent.
So why is Maye performing this much better than Williams at this juncture? Did the Bears truly make a mistake? And is Williams a bust?
As always, the answers aren’t as straightforward as they seem.
Having watched every game of both players in 2024, I came away thinking both were better than the situations around them suggested, but that Maye’s flaws were ultimately easier to correct. Both needed (and still need) to live to fight another day rather than extending plays past their time of death, for example. But Maye has always played faster, even dating back to college, taken fewer sacks, and has so far thrown more catchable footballs in the pros than Williams.
Both needed better offensive coaching and got it this offseason in Ben Johnson (Bears) and Josh McDaniels, who returned for his third stint as the Patriots’ offensive coordinator this year. Both needed better offensive line play and have, for the most part, received it.
But so far, Maye has taken far more quickly to McDaniels’ tutelage than Williams has to Johnson’s, though it’s worth pointing out that Johnson is going through his own growing pains leading the offense and the team. The former Tar Heel has also unquestionably done more with less this season, making everyone forget Stefon Diggs is coming off an ACL tear, that Kayshon Boutte was a sixth-round pick not guaranteed to make the roster last year, and New England also struggles to run the football?
Is this all because McDaniels is more established in his role than Johnson is, or because the Bears had more of a teardown process offensively than New England? Is it a product of the Patriots playing an easy schedule and making Maye look better? Or is it because Maye is simply better than Williams?
There’s truth to all three. But the latter feels the most likely right now.
It’s not just about the numbers. It’s on the film: the decisiveness, the lack of hesitation to layer throws over the middle or on the sideline, the uncanny knack for gashing defenses for deep touchdowns, the vertical escapability in the pocket, the elite arm talent.
It’s all there, and it’s all helping the Patriots lead a division that looked like it was earmarked for Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills until he retired.
Does all of this mean Caleb Williams isn’t capable of the same excellence? No. He has his own set of otherworldly skills and his own brilliant arm talent. He’s clearly improved over last season and will only continue to get better with Johnson as the two gain comfort in their roles.
Williams can absolutely still become a top passer in the NFL and lead the Bears to the playoffs. But the fact that we’re already talking about Williams needing Baker Mayfield or Sam Darnold levels of time to emerge as a superstar is concerning—not least because neither of those players is doing it for the teams that drafted them. Are we really this close already to wondering if he’s ever going to reach the heights we envisioned for him?
On the other hand, you have a guy from his class who one could conceivably see becoming a perennial Pro Bowl and (maybe) All-Pro in a conference that includes no less than five of the NFL’s best quarterbacks.
Some might say it’s not fair to compare Williams to Maye right now because their situations aren’t apples-to-apples and the challenges facing them are slightly different. Fine. There’s some merit to that. But the counter is: why shouldn’t we be comparing Williams to the absolute best the NFL has to offer? Isn’t that why the Bears rightly traded away Justin Fields and drafted Williams No. 1 overall—to transform the franchise? Isn’t that why Johnson is here and why this offense is stocked with skill players—to accelerate his path toward greatness? So why aren’t we seeing it from him but are seeing it from Maye?
And that’s where the frustration creeps back in. “Why couldn’t that have been us? Should Drake Maye be doing this for us?” But all accounts, it seems like that was never going to happen, just as Ryan Pace was never taking Patrick Mahomes over Mitchell Trubisky. (Given what both QBs did in the 2018 season and the discussion around them, no, it’s not too early for that conversation.)
The good thing about Williams is that he has the talent and the right situation (I think) to make us stop asking this question. It’s up to him to go from “fine” and “improving” to “awesome,” which he so far has not yet been. But it’s still in his power to do, and there’s time to make it happen.
For his sake, and the sake of Bears’ fans, I hope he does. Because watching another guy you passed on become the best QB in the NFL for the next decade or so would be absolutely brutal. As early as it seems to be worried about that, what I’ve seen from Maye suggests this conversation isn’t going away.
