Bears Lucky Enough to Get Generational QB Like Caleb Williams

Chicago is prepared to show the world that they were ready for this inevitability, ending up with the NFL's No. 1 draft pick.

Few of us know Caleb Williams personally, or, went through the trouble of truly getting to know him by asking a guy who isn’t an NFL scout anymore but talks to other NFL scouts about what he thinks of Williams being upset after a loss, but it’s safe to say he should be considered a “generational” prospect. 

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Williams is like Bryce Young, Trevor Lawrence or Andrew Luck before him, a quarterback that we’ve been projecting into an NFL huddle since he was in high school. This is a moment that feels less like it's unfolding before our eyes in real time and more that it has simply arrived from another period, moved like a piece of furniture from a college apartment into a forever home. He has survived the strange and venomous pre-draft cycle. He has bested a handful of other players who are also considered worthy of the first pick. And now, he’s a member of the Chicago Bears. 

The hard part begins now. The Bears are the latest team that we would consider lucky enough to get a generational quarterback while also wondering if they will ever be properly equipped to turn him into the player we imagined he would be. Note that Luck was so battered and tossed around that he retired before his age-30 season. Lawrence has shown flashes of brilliance but is already on his second head coach, has just one winning season and in two of his first three years has thrown 14 or more interceptions. Young will be on his second head coach this coming year, after enduring one of the most disastrously composed coaching staffs in recent memory and a team that was blatantly devoid of proper surrounding talent. 

It’s not always fair to generalize, but in most of these cases the surrounding team was so bad before the arrival of said generational player, and the efforts to realize that player’s potential were so shaped by immense pressure, that it led to scattershot decision making. 

Chicago’s challenge is breaking that cycle, and one could argue that they have the best chance to do so. 

Bears general manager Ryan Poles has collected an impressive stockpile of talent to aid his new quarterback’s development.

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What’s interesting about the Bears is how they’ve managed to delay the consummation of their rebuild (the consummation being the current regime’s selection of their heir apparent quarterback). Because the Bears could almost operate under the assumption that they would have a second crack at a good quarterback class, and because they were already playing with a quarterback on a rookie contract in Justin Fields, the Bears could prep the roster unlike some of the other teams that barreled their way into the No. 1 pick (or, in the case of the Carolina Panthers, trading for it). They could spend on foundational pieces, trade for foundational pieces and provide themselves a legitimate runway. 

They’ve also kept a coaching staff, sans offensive coordinator, and front office almost completely intact.   

This is, in a way, how most of the teams that have made the Super Bowl in recent years have behaved. The only difference is that those teams did not select a quarterback No. 1. Stick with me for a second and entertain this idea: The Kansas City Chiefs were already a complete team before selecting Patrick Mahomes. Same for the Los Angeles Rams and Matthew Stafford. Same for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Tom Brady. Same for the Denver Broncos and Peyton Manning and, I suppose, Patriots 3.0 during Brady’s final two championship runs in New England. Same for the San Francisco 49ers and Brock Purdy (even if it was supposed to be Trey Lance). Same for the Philadelphia Eagles and Jalen Hurts. 

The Bears are a solid 7–10 team that could have and should have finished 8–9 or 9–8 and are selecting No. 1 a year after drafting a franchise tackle. The hope is that it makes a difference. Williams is moving into the franchise equivalent of a respectable townhouse in a neighborhood with good schools. Lawrence, Young and Luck all took up residence in lodgings more reminiscent of that shockingly dire looking corner of your neighborhood Dollar Tree. 

The Bears are closer in complexion—though not in the same realm—as the pre-Carson Wentz Eagles, or the pre-Manning Broncos.

They will also be proof that the mythos surrounding a franchise quarterback is just that unless there is some serious legwork and consideration put in first. The reality is that many of the franchises legitimately awful enough to earn the No. 1 pick organically have done so through repeated cases of malpractice so severe that only ownership could possibly be the root cause. That, and a severely flawed decision making process that keeps on producing incapable or poorly developed leadership groups. 

No, we don’t know Williams. But we do know what he is capable of. So do the Bears, which, in selecting him, are preparing to show the world that they were ready for this inevitability.