The Chicago Bears have been searching for a franchise quarterback for a long, long time. No one is disputing that.
But when do fans know when the team actually has one?
It’s sort of one of those “you know it when you see it” deals. But what are the measures of a franchise quarterback?
Is it stats? Passing yards? Touchdowns? Lack of interceptions?
Simply wins?
Is it the given collective thought at the beginning of each season that “that guy, that guy is the starting QB, no matter what?“
Or is it games started?
There is no right or wrong answer here. In fact, I think it’s a combination of some of these different ideas.
I also think the Bears have their franchise quarterback for the first time in…well…
The best ability
Health is never a given in football. It’s a brutally violent sport, and any play can change the trajectory of a career.
Availability is one measure of a franchise quarterback. It has to be.
Some players can earn that designation without having the best availability. Look at Joe Borrow, for example. He’s been in the league for six seasons and has played every game in only half of them.
There are plenty of reasons for that. And a player only has so much control over their body’s ability to absorb hit after hit and/or heal.
Bringing it back to Chicago, one of their past franchise quarterbacks had this issue. Jim McMahon was a great quarterback. He won a lot of games. But he could never stay healthy.
In seven seasons with the Bears, he never played 16 games in one season and only twice started 11 or more games.
He made 16 consecutive starts from week 10 of the 1983 season to week 10 of 1984.
But for other players, their availability is a defining trait. Brett Favre, for example. Peyton Manning, too.
Manning started every game from 1998 through 2010. After missing the 2011 season, he started every game from 2012 through the first nine games of the 2015 season.
And availability can raise the overall resumé of an otherwise above-average QB.
Peyton’s two-time Super Bowl champion brother, Eli, whose legacy is often debated, started every game from week 11 of his rookie year in 2004 until week three of his final season in 2019.
Joe Flacco, the meme of “is he elite,” started every game during his first seven years in Baltimore and only missed 14 games total in his 11-year run with the Ravens.
The other stuff
But for Chicago, the lack of quarterback talent has hit as much as a lack of health.
Quarterbacks came and went, often through benchings due to poor play, but injuries, too.
Rex Grossman never developed, but he also didn’t get much of a chance. After sitting for the first 13 games of his career, he started just five games before a knee injury knocked him out. The next season he broke his ankle, limiting him to just two games and one start.
He came into the Super Bowl season with only seven career starts. That year he started every game, but his knack for turnovers never went away and after just 19 consecutive starts, he was benched.
And I don’t need to go on. Mitch Trubisky, Justin Fields, Kyle Orton and Eric Kramer.
Each of them had flashes, but also obvious shortcomings that said “he’s not the guy.”
Then there was Jay. Polarizing as ever. He had talent, but also trusted his arm too much at times.
After starting his first 20 games with the Bears, he seemed to always get dinged up. He started 21 straight games until his broken thumb at the end of 2011.
And then there was his unceremonious benching at the end of 2014, which ended any shot at breaking the Bears’ single-season passing record and ended a 17-straight start streak.
Going streaking
It’s a pretty short list of Bears QBs with a starting streak of any length.
According to a FOX graphic put up during the Dec. 14 game against the Cleveland Browns, the longest starting streaks in franchise history are Bob Avellini (42) and Bill Wade (37).
Starts are a bit of a weird thing to track. Up until the 1950s, it wasn’t really thought of as a stat, so to speak. Or at least one that mattered. Looking back at Bears teams from the 1940s, Hall of Fame QB Sid Luckman wasn’t credited with starting every game of any of those seasons, even when he appeared in all 12 games.
But QBs weren’t really playing the position in a modern way either, with the T-formation. The Bears had multiple players attempting passes. Luckman was just doing it the most.
As the game evolved and the sport became more mainstream, things like starts did start to get tracked more.
Expanding beyond just Avellini and Wade, here are the other Bears QBs to start at least 20 games, without putting Caleb in (yet). With an assist from Jack Silverstein for helping me track these down.
27 – Jim Harbaugh ’91-’92
26 – Vince Evans ’80-’81
26 – Ed Brown ’55-’57
25 – Bobby Douglass ’72-’73
22 – Mitch Trubisky ’17-’18
21 – Jay Cutler ’10-’11
20 – Cutler ’09-’10
20 – Erik Kramer – ’95-’96
Avellini and Wade played in the 14-game season era. Ed Brown during the 12-game season.
The (Iron) Ice Man?
Caleb arrived in 2024 and was the first rookie quarterback in modern franchise history to be the no-doubt week one starter. No veteran to sit behind, no one else to push him in a competition.
While that season didn’t go well, Caleb did start every game. And in his historic sophomore season, he did it again.
After just two seasons in Chicago, and thanks to the extended NFL regular season, Williams has now started 34 straight regular-season games and 36 straight, including postseason.
The above lists do not include postseason starts, but even that would add only one for each of Harbaugh, Wade and Avellini. Cutler and Trubisky missed games in the season that Chicago made the playoffs.
Caleb is already solidly in third place, and as long as he stays healthy, by the middle of October, he could be setting a new record.
In addition to setting a single-season passing yards record for the franchise, Williams is also the first QB to have consecutive seasons with at least 20 touchdown passes and fewer than 10 interceptions. His two seasons with 20 or more TD passes is tied with Luckman for the second-most in franchise history behind Cutler’s four.
Following 2025, I think it would be hard to find a fan who doesn’t think the Bears have found their quarterback. Caleb is already rewriting Chicago’s record books in multiple areas.
Availability is just one.
