Caleb Williams Injury Return Estimations From NFL Insiders Offer Pessimistic Outlook For Week 3

We know that Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams has avoided a serious injury that won't keep him out long term. What we don't know is if Williams is going to miss any time, and if so, how much.

The initial report from The Ringer's Tom Pelissero left the door open for Williams to play in Week 3, but head coach Ben Johnson said Williams is "week-to-week" and "will likely miss some time."

Johnson also said he didn't anticipate that Williams will practice, but then he went on to talk about how Williams is "a little bit different than your average human being" in regard to how he recovers, per ESPN's Courtney Cronin, so that, along with Pelissero's report, offers some hope that he could suit up.

What makes this difficult to figure out is the fact that we still don't know the exact severity of Williams' injury. Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio reported on Sunday that Williams could have something as simple as a Grade 1 hamstring strain, but he wasn't definitive about that.

NFL insiders weigh-in on Caleb Williams' return timeline

Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams. — Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams (18) is helped off the field with an apparent injury against the Minnesota Vikings during the second half at Soldier Field. Mandatory Credit: Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Two NFL insiders, NFL Network's Ian Rapoport and Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer, both gave their thoughts on Williams' return timeline and both think the Bears quarterback to miss at least some time.

To be clear, though, neither one is reporting this as fact, but rather giving their best guess as to how they think things will unfold.

"It certainly seems like Caleb Williams is unlikely to start this week and next week we will see," Rapoport said on The Pat McAfee Show. "Two to four weeks is generally the diagnosis for these kind of hamstring injuries."

"Caleb Williams looks like they dodged a bullet," Breer told Dan Patrick. "It does look like, while that was a painful thing to go through, he did wing up coming out of it OK. I would expect him to maybe miss some time, as Ben Johnson said, but I don't think it's going to be an extended period."

The general consensus seems to be that Williams is not going to play this week, but again, that has not been confirmed and it's hard to even make an educated guess when we don't know the severity of what he's dealing with.

If Williams is indeed dealing with a Grade 1 strain, his chances of playing this week are slim to none, and he could miss multiple games, as Rapoport said.

Bears should err on the side of caution

Even if Williams is in a spot where he is good enough to play, Chicago may very well (and probably should) err on the side of caution and sit Williams anyway.

After all, hamstring injuries have a high risk of re-injury and the Bears still have an entire season ahead of them.

They would be better served being extra careful and have him miss a game or even two rather than to rush him back and run the risk of Williams re-aggravating the injury and being out for an extended period.

Because the Bears play on Monday night, they won't be dropping their first injury report of the week until Thursday. Even so much as a limited practice for Williams would be huge, but we aren't betting on it.

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