Bear Digest

Another Caleb Williams Bears mentor idea and a better option

Another backup quarterback and mentor for Caleb Williams has been suggested and the idea has merit but there's still a better option to help improve the second-year passer.
Gene Chamberlain|
Caleb Williams and Tyson Bagent were the top two Bears QBs in 2024 but it might improve the team to add another backup.
Caleb Williams and Tyson Bagent were the top two Bears QBs in 2024 but it might improve the team to add another backup. | Daniel Bartel-Imagn Images

In this story:

Chicago Bears

It's a case of better idea but the wrong quarterback.

For the second time since Super Bowl week, the Bears and another potential backup quarterback to bring in behind Caleb Williams has been suggested by an analyst.

While it does make more sense than the first one, both are missing what is actually the best idea for backing up Williams in 2025.

Sports Illustrated's Conor Orr offered up his bold predictions for every team in the 2025 season and focused his Bears prediction on one that makes much more sense than an earlier signing suggestion did for Chicago. While more logical, it still doesn't meet the real need the Bears have for Williams.

Orr's bold prediction is that the Bears sign Lions backup quarterback Teddy Bridgewater.  

Orr thinks Ryan Poles would be doing the right thing by "...clearing the decks in the QB room and bringing in passers who can elevate Williams and help him realize his full potential."

This would most likely indicate an end for Tyson Bagent in Chicago. The Bears have Bagent under contract for this season but it's his final season before becoming a restricted free agent. That isn't as relevant as the need Orr sees being solved with Bridgewater.

A mentor type for Williams is the idea and it was also the idea behind a story authored by a Bleacher Report writer named Brad Gagnon that said the Bears need to sign Joe Flacco.

Neither QB fits the real need for a second-year quarterback.

Flacco's ability to mentor has never been proven when he had chances at this role with the Jets, Browns, Broncos and Colts and even the Ravens. It's hard to believe Flacco could have taught Lamar Jackson much considering their 180-degree opposite playing styles, the fact he lost his starting job to Jackson past the midpoint of a season and was playing up until then and not mentoring. And then he was gone the next year.

Orr's idea makes much more sense because Bridgewater actually went into coaching after he decided he was going to retire after 2023. However, he returned late in the 2024 season and essentially has one season plus a few months of experience working in Ben Johnson's offense.

Teams often bring in a quarterback from a past team affiliated with a coordinator or head coach to help put their offense into place. The Bears billed it his way when they signed Trevor Siemian in 2022 because he had operated an offense in Denver using the wide zone blocking scheme and West Coast style extensively but hadn't really had any experience with Luke Getsy or the Packers offense the Bears were going to use.

The idea of a backup mentor is fine for a rookie who a team is planning to throw to the wolves as starter.

It would have been a good idea last year when they had Shane Waldron as offensive coordinator if they also had someone on the roster like, say, Brett Rypien, who had operated the Rams attack as a backup in 2023 and later that year was a Seahawks roster pickup.

Oh, wait the Bears actually did have Rypien on the roster, but they cut him at the end of training camp and he ended up in Minnesota with a coach who came from the Rams system helping along a QB who was one of last year's true turnaround stories.

Williams is going into Year 2 and will have capable coaches. Mentoring isn't a needed thing at this point.

What Williams needs is what was suggested by this website prior to the Senior Bowl. Williams needs a spur. He needs someone to provide a kick in the rear end.

Here's a double-down: The Bears need to draft quarterback Jaxson Dart from Mississippi in the second round. They need to provide Williams with competition more than they need to have someone mentor him after he's been in the league one year.

The idea of having another young quarterback who wants to learn and be a starter ahead of him helps keep complacency out of the picture. When you're the anointed one, it's easy to sit back and not push yourself every week if you know you're going to be their guy no matter what. When there is someone behind you who wants to actually take the job and lead the team, and is capable of it, then you tend to pay a little more attention to what coaches are preaching.

Sure, they had Bagent and he wants to play, but a pick from Day 2 of the draft packs a bigger punch than someone with a Division II arm.

This is still the best idea for getting the best out of Williams.

As for Bridgewater's value helping teach the offense, Johnson is supposed to be the master teacher. This is how he is described in Brad Biggs' deep-dive article into his past. Why does he need yet another voice dealing with Williams besides his own experienced assistants like T.J. Barrett, Press Taylor and coordinator Declan Doyle?

Bridgewater was only with the Lions for part of one training camp, had no offseason work there and never threw a pass in a regular-season game. They signed him a week into August in 2023 and he retired after 2023 to be a high school coach before he returned late in the 2024 season.

Dart had a strong Senior Bowl week and many see him as a second-round pick.

Williams made tremendous strides and burst onto the nation when he had Spencer Rattler to beat out at Oklahoma in 2021. He didn't do it at first but eventually drove himself to win the job.

If the Bears want to bring out the best in Williams, they should draft Dart to provide extra incentive.

More Chicago Bears News

Twitter: BearsOnSI

Published
Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.