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Former NFL QB's Compliment for Caleb Williams Infuriates Bears Fans

There's one very good reason the praise from one NFL analyst has failed to please Bears fans on social media to the point of outrage.
Gene Chamberlain|
Bears quarterback Caleb Williams looks downfield for a target after rolling out of the pocket against Green Bay.
Bears quarterback Caleb Williams looks downfield for a target after rolling out of the pocket against Green Bay. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

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Chicago Bears

One thing Bears fans cannot be accused of is having short memories.

It's always been this way, and social media only provided another platform for them to express this. It's happening again with comments made via "X" and other interviews in the past and now with former NFL QB Robert Griffin III regarding none other than Caleb Williams.

The high praise for Williams in what is known as "ranking season," during the dead period before training camps, included several top-10 ratings. Talk show host Colin Cowherd even put him No. 3 behind Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes.

Cowherd frequently says wildly outrageous things and it can't help but attract attention to his show, but he has almost always been a vocal supporter of Williams.

Another voice came out this week saying Williams could be QB3 in the NFL and it was on Cowherd's show. Yet, his proclamation wasn't met with quite the same enthusiasm from Bears fans. It was from former Commanders QB Robert Griffin III.

"I don't think it's outrageous to say he'll be the third-best quarterback in the league this year," RG III told Cowherd.

He also had another compliment, although there was a very low bar associated with it.

"He could very easily become the greatest quarterback in Chicago Bears history," RG III said. "All he has to do is get them to a Super Bowl and win that bad boy and he'll be immortalized in Chicago forever."

Because the best of Bears modern era QBs includes only Jim McMahon and Jay Cutler, and both had obvious issues — McMahon with his often-injured body and Cutler with his attitude — it's a low bar. Williams could easily become the best Bears QB ever without winning or even making a Super Bowl.

Still, this has nothing to do with the comments RG III made to enrage a fan base.

Bears fans well remember who it was urging Williams not to even come to Chicago on social media in 2024. It was none other than RG III.

When RG III urged Williams and his father not to come to Chicago, it was because of the coaching instability.

If Griffin had just said this to Williams and his father it would have been fine, and there's no doubt the Bears had coaching instability. It was even worse than instability. It was downright incompetence on the part of the last staff.

However, he made this a public stance and ulitmately failed in his comment to realize something important about today's NFL that someone who does analysis shouldn't miss.

Griffin now calls Williams and Ben Johnson the "perfect yin and yang" on Cowherd's show ... more compliments.

However, telling a QB not to go somewhere because of coaching instability does invite fan outrage because in the NFL you can never be sure when the right coach will come along. In this case, it was a year after the quarterback arrived. Sometimes it works this way, sometimes it's at the same time.

The Bears were fortunate enough in 1982 to get Mike Ditka and McMahon in together at the same time for their run to a Lombard Trophy after years of coaching instability. It doesn't always work that way, though. You take the coaching when you can get it.

What RG III failed to realize

Urging someone not to sign is stupid on the face of it because it's going to cost a player far too much money if he sits out entirely, and will even cost the team he does get traded to valued draft picks. Chances are the team the QB is going to wind up with if he pulls a stunt like RG III urged is only going to be another unstable coaching situation. Otherwise, they wouldn't be drafting early, and that's the type of team that could most easily swing such deals. Maybe Williams would have ended up with the Jets for two seasons of misery. Who knows?

The key to all of this is the impatient approach RG III urged is backward in an era when coaches get fired with more and more frequency, after shorter periods of time, coaching stability can actually be only the next season away. Ownership sides with the QB and will bring in the right coach. It happened in Chicago.

As a result, Griffin needs to be chastized now by Bears fans for this lack of faith they could get the coach right.

Lack of patience with the Bears organization by doing what Griffin urged would have cost Williams all of those Iceman moments, a lot of money, and Bears fans their satisfying wins three times in the last two years over the Packers, not to mention the first playoff win since the 2010 season.

Throwing a compliment the QB's way now doesn't do a thing to correct how Griffin insulted an entire football community with his comments in 2024 and not just a football organization.

The Bears can all do without future "compliments" from this source.

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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.

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