Caleb Williams Makes Bizarre Omission from List of Greatest Bears of All Time

Picking the best players from any of the 32 NFL teams is hard, but it's especially hard for those franchises who were founding members of the NFL itself, such as the Chicago Bears. Founded in 1919, the Bears have over 100 years of history to draw from, including the most Hall of Fame inductees of any team.

Current Bears quarterback Caleb Williams was asked in a recent interview to name his 'Mount Rushmore' of Bears, or the four best, most iconic players in franchise history. Ask 100 different people to do this same exercise and you'll likely get 100 different answers, but one name would be at the top of all their lists, and that's the one name that Williams bizarrely omitted: Walter Payton.

Caleb Williams clearly skews more towards recent history

Even if not for the glaring absence of Walter Payton, the list of names Williams gave raises some eyebrows. He went with Matt Forte, Jim McMahon, Devin Hester, and then listed Brian Urlacher and Mike Singletary as a tie for the final spot.

The first thing that stands out about this list is that none of the players are from further back than the 1980's. No Sid Luckman, who revolutionized the game of football, nor Red Grange who, ironically, shared the Iceman moniker that Williams is trying to trademark. There's nothing inherently wrong with this. As aforementioned, it's hard to select just four names from a team whose history stretches back to the year after World War 1.

However, I would have thought that Williams would at least throw some of the Bears history buffs a bone by going way back in time for one of the original Chicago Bears superstars.

Chicago Bears LB Brian Urlacher reacts after intercepting a pass. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Walter Payton has become synonymous with the Chicago Bears franchise

The inclusion of McMahon in Williams' list makes sense; he remains the only quarterback in Chicago Bears history to win a Super Bowl, and, like Williams, he had something of an infectious, unapologetic personality. Singletary, too, was part of that Super Bowl team and was considered the heart and soul of that devastating, unyielding '85 defense.

Hester, while not a Super Bowl champion, is a good choice as the only return specialist to be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But Urlacher? He was a phenomenal linebacker, continuing Chicago's proud tradition of fielding elite linebackers, and he also was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but he lacked the kind of lasting impact on the game of football that Hester had.

And with all due respect to Matt Forte, who in April gave me his thoughts about the Bears' 2025 season and the 2026 NFL draft, it's almost blasphemous to place any running back not named Walter Payton on the Chicago Bears Mount Rushmore.

No one served as the living embodiment of that Super Bowl team quite like Sweetness did, and in the years since, his smiling image has come to been as synonymous with the organization itself. The NFL renamed its Man of the Year award in his honor, and it is one of the most highly coveted awards among the players. It's the only award for which its recipients are authorized to wear a special patch on their jerseys.

Again, I mean no disrespect to any of these legends. Urlacher and Hester are Hall of Famers. McMahon and Singletary are Super Bowl champions. Forte would be the greatest running back in franchise history for almost any other NFL team. Each one has a valid case to be listed among the greatest players in franchise history. But taken together, Williams gave us one of the more bizarre Chicago Bears Mount Rushmore lists that I've seen.

Of course, it would be wildly unfair to criticize Williams' list without providing my own for others to dissect. On my Chicago Bears Mount Rushmore, I would place Walter Payton, Sid Luckman, Mike Ditka, and Dick Butkus. In contrast to Williams, I skewed more towards the older players. I would love to include a player from the 21st century, but no one yet has done enough for the Chicago Bears to bump these four names from my list.

Hopefully, Caleb Williams will be the man to change that.

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