Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Caleb Williams has known that since well before the Chicago Bears made him the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, and it hasn’t fazed him in the slightest.
Say what you want about him, he told reporters at Halas Hall on Wednesday. He’s just going to keep it pushing.
“People are going to say what they have to say. I can’t please everybody. That’s not my job. My job is to go win games. My job is to be the best player I can be. My job is to believe in myself,
trust in my teammates and go out there and be one of those guys on the field that makes game-changing plays. You like it, you don’t like it, you got to deal with it,” he said.
Being an NFL quarterback, particularly one tasked with being the savior of a QB-starved franchise like the Bears, is no picnic. Add being a top pick and former Heisman Trophy winner with a penchant for showing his emotions and painting his nails to the mix, and even being objectively great at the game isn’t enough to get naysayers and trolls off your back.
No matter. Because Williams has become a top-five quarterback in the NFL in his third season, and he’s done it by showing the doubters he can do what they said he couldn’t: the little things.
A year after being a big-game hunter (9.2 average depth of target) who struggled to consistently complete passes (58.1% completion rate), Williams has transformed himself into one of the most dangerous “game-managers” in the league (70.9% completion rate, second in the NFL behind Joe Burrow).
Sure, he’s left some plays on the table and has dramatically lowered his ADOT compared to last year (6.8 in 2026), leading some to believe he’s become little more than a checkdown merchant. But if you watch with your eyes rather than box scores and passing charts, you see what Williams has truly become: a monster who’s capable of beating you any way at any time.
Need him to take a checkdown to D’Andre Swift to make it 3rd-and-manageable or complete a 5-yard hot route to Colston Loveland for a first down? He’s got you.
Want to see him rip a 25-yard strike down the middle of the field on a rope to a wide-open Luther Burden III or Rome Odunze, while evading an unblocked rusher? No problem.
Playing chess with some of the best defenses in the NFL, including the Seattle Seahawks, like a conductor leading a symphony of offensive destruction? He’s got that in his bag, too.
Williams’ second season in Ben Johnson’s offense, which currently sees him on pace to become the Bears’ first-ever 4,000-yard passer despite missing three games, has produced exactly the third-year leap teams beg for from their young quarterbacks. But it hasn’t been about constant fireworks, jaw-dropping downfield throws, and impossible sack evasions. It’s been about doing the boring, mundane stuff that all the greats will tell you wins championships.
He’ll never be a guy that makes everyone happy. He’ll never be everything to everyone.
But his game is rounding into one of the most complete skill sets in the league—whether the haters like it or not.
