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Caleb Williams' Focus on Winning Is Music to Bears Fans' Ears
Long podcast interview provides insight into rookie quarterback's thinking just before he officially becomes a Bears draft pick.
Caleb Williams has a plan for the draft and beyond with the Bears.
"If they draft me, the plan is to go work my ass off, get after it, get in the playbook really heavily and handle things the way they need to be handed mentally, physically, nutrition and treatment and sleep and all that," he said. "Handle all that the way it needs to be handled."
And he wants to keep handling it right up to Feb. 9 in New Orleans, sight of Super Bowl LIX. Then keep doing it.
While talking on the Pivot podcast with former NFL players Ryan Clark, Fred Taylor and Channing Crowder, Williams expressed nothing but excitement over coming to a city where football matters. He came across in a more than an hour-long podcast as the type of serious-minded quarterback who could succeed in a city starved for a championship.
"I loved L.A.," he said. "L.A. was great. Now that I want to play at one place for 20 years and chase one guy, No. 12 (Tom Brady), I want a place that loves ball. You know that's all I've heard about Chicago so far, which it's exciting for me because L.A. was great but, I mean, it probably has double-digits of teams heare. It's a big pool. So you have to be winning championships, you have to be playoffs every year to have the fans and things show up.
"Chicago is a place where I've heard they love ball, which is really exciting for me. It's something that I'm looking forward to it and embracing."
The wide-ranging interview touched on his recent social media use, including his answer to criticism by Greg McElroy saying he hadn't proven he can overcome adversity, or even faced it in sufficient terms. Williams called the response something he did out of boredom while laying around after a workout.
"And I also respond in harmless ways,' he said. "I don't attack people, anything like that. That's not how I do it. I just kind of be a smartass about it."
Fans might find following him more fruitful than other Bears QBs of the past because he might engage in talk.
"I respond just every once in a while just for trolls and jokes and just to enjoy," he said. "Don't make things bigger than what they are. Don't make them more stressful than what they are."
SENSIBLE TRADE UP HAS MANY OBSTACLES FOR BEARS
One of the criticisms he has taken note of is how it's often said he doesn't throw enough from the pocket.
"If you all look at the stats, and I have a screen shot of it, if you look at the stats and on average I am the most dead-center even dude for scrambling and throwing in the pocket," he said. "It's just, I make more highights (scrambling to throw) and so that's what they show."
PRESSURE COOKER ALREADY BUILDING FOR CALEB WILLIAMS
His preoccupation with winning and winning enough to challenge Tom Brady's record of success is what the Bears fans want to hear. He's going to arrive in a pressure cooker from the start, as the replacement for a popular quarterback, Justin Fields.
"There's no extra pressure added because I know who I am," Williams told Clark, Taylor and Crowder. "I know how hard I work. I know what I like. I know what i didn't like. I know the people around me. You take the emotion out of it and you look at it from a different way and you deal with it that way."
The podcat touches on his suit for the upcoming draft annoucement--it's appropriately navy blue, but with an extra touch to it.
"It's very classy," he said.
He discusses the impact his parents had on him, his girlfriend, his lack of an agent, criticism he received for crying in his mother's arms after a loss late last season and where he was when he first heard the Bears had traded Fields, paving the way for his selection first by them.
"My phone explodes," he said. "I ended up calling a couple people and just, like, welp, we know where their mind and heart is."
Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven
