Skip to main content
Bear Digest

Caleb Williams Admits Analysts Provide Fuel for This Bears Season

The Bears are being called a team certain to slip back and their QB is acknowledging he hears the critics but has filed away their comments for safe keeping.
Gene Chamberlain|
Caleb Williams' numerous detractors could be sufficient motivation to keep any egos in check.
Caleb Williams' numerous detractors could be sufficient motivation to keep any egos in check. | Matt Marton-Imagn Images

In this story:

Chicago Bears

One of the great concerns with Caleb Williams' play this season could have just been addressed and the Bears are not even working yet at Halas Hall.

In fact, it seems like it's been an issue for a while.

The problem of Williams' sudden rise to QB fame after seven fourth-quarter comebacks in 2025, capped by his appearance on the cover of Madden. It's all going to go to his head, or so the thinking by his critics has gone. But in one interview Williams did on the Pardon My Take, podcast Williams has successfully shown why this is no longer a real problem.

It seems, Williams will have something else driving him far stronger than any appearance on a game cover. The motivating factor is doubt. Williams doesn't seem to get a fair shake both from announcers and the analysts even after he accomplished late in games what many quarterbacks might need five years to do.

Williams admitted some analysis is logged away in his memory banks when he hears them during games slanting toward opposing QBs.

"I'm not going to say any names on the air but there are times where I go back and I listen and it's like I just watch their (opposing QB) drive, well, I don't even have to (go back to) watch it," Williams told Eric Sollenberger and Dan Katz on the podcast. "I just remember what their drive was and they didn't even complete a pass or whatever.

"Yeah, there's reporters and analysts or whatever you want to call them, that I remember. Sometimes I shake their hand a little bit harder when I see them in person."

Who's slighting him?

The classic example might be last year when Troy Aikman was giving Williams grief because of a missed in-week Monday Night Football pregame "production meeting." Aikman was calling the Bears QB and offense "lucky" while heaping praise on Jayden Daniels and the Commanders. Then the Bears rallied and won, which only seemed to leave the former Cowboys QB at a loss for words.

Williams may have had quite the honor for a passer with 58.1% completions by landing on the cover of Madden, but the number of people who doubt him and the Bears for 2026 is probably enough to motivate a full 53-man roster a few times over. Pro Football Focus landed them right at the top of an article about teams who will regress, and they rated third among division winners most likely to take a step back by NFL.com.

ESPN's Bill Barnwell this week called their skill position group the 15th best in the league, which seems to run contrary to the fact they were sixth on offense last year and did it with Colston Loveland and Luther Burden in their first years.

As for Williams, he's rated behind Drake Maye and Trevor Lawrence and is 70th overall on the CBS top 100 player list.

He'll probably appear on the NFL top 100 list somewhere but the skeptics are still out there.

It's been an offseason when Williams couldn't even get the "Iceman" copyright he applied for but, ironically enough not because of George Gervin's late claim to the copyright. It was because of an outdoors company already claiming one product with this name.

Sure, there are plenty of supporters like Derek Carr, who said Williams hasn't even approached what he's capable of yet. But they're drowned out by the sea of nay sayers.

The skeptics are out there, and if Williams or the Bears begin to falter then the dogpile on top of them will grow. They're also providing inspiration for a younger team and young QB trying to prove themselves, however.

It wasn't as if the Bears did much, anyway. They beat the Eagles and Steelers and finished ahead of three teams in the NFC North before beating the Packers again in the playoffs.

They still need to prove themselves against superior NFC West opposition.

Sign Up For the Bears Daily Digest - OnSI’s Free Chicago Bears Newsletter

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Loading recommendations... Please wait while we load personalized content recommendations

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.

Home/News