Bears' Caleb Williams Edges Packers' Jordan Love for No. 10 Spot on ESPN's QB Rankings

It already seems a lifetime ago that NFL fans and analysts were wondering whether quarterback Caleb Williams was going to be the next name in a long line of failed Chicago Bears quarterbacks. But after Caleb Williams' breakout season in 2025, many of those same critics are convinced that he's the real deal, and they're not alone. In a recent polling of NFL scouts, coaches, and executives by ESPN, Williams earned the No. 10 spot in a ranking of the league's best quarterbacks, narrowly beating out Green Bay's Jordan Love, among others.

Caleb Williams' clutch gene has boosted him into the company of the NFL's elite quarterbacks

Every year, ESPN anonymously polls NFL scouts, coaches, and executives around the league to determine the Top 10 players of each position group. Joe Thuney was No. 5 in the interior offensive line rankings for 2026, and now his quarterback joins him at No. 10 for quarterbacks. According to ESPN, it was a virtual tie for the No. 10 spot between Williams, Jordan Love, Sam Darnold, and Jayden Daniels. To determine who would make the cut, ESPN had to turn to tiebreakers.

What gave Williams the edge over these guys? In a word: Iceman. "He's a closer," said one personnel evaluator. "End of game, he has shown that." It's as simple as that. After just two seasons, Williams has proven to be arguably the most clutch quarterback in the league. Williams' six fourth-quarter comebacks in 2025 tied Peyton Manning for the most ever by a second-year player, and that's not counting his miraculous wild card win over the Green Bay Packers.

"He's the most dynamic of the group," one GM said, regarding the four quarterbacks vying for the No. 10 spot. "He's got the arm talent and overall athleticism suited for today's game." Darnold is a Super Bowl champion, and Love and Daniels each have impressive highlight reels of their own, but the simple fact of the matter is that none of them hold a candle to Williams when it comes to dynamic playmaking ability.

It's something we saw over and over in 2025. Williams proved he could make even the most impossible of throws if you gave him so much as an inch of slack. Famously, Green Bay Packers receiver Christian Watson was caught with his jaw dropped at Caleb Williams' stunning 4th-and-8 throw to Rome Odunze in their Wild Card matchup.

Hitting the layups in addition to the home runs is the next step for Caleb Williams

Of course, 2025 was not all sunshine and rainbows for Williams. He struggled mightily at times and finished with an unacceptably low completion percentage. His last pass of the season was an interception in overtime of the Bears' heartbreaking Divisional round loss to the Rams. Granted, receiver DJ Moore carried some blame for that turnover, but it still wasn't a good decision by Williams to throw that ball.

If Williams is going to not just reappear on this list next year but move up in the rankings, he'll need to be more consistent. "Wildly erratic," is how one NFL defensive coach described Williams. "Doesn't always take the layups and still needs to mature into the position. [He] has some of those 'what is he doing?' plays. But he also makes plays only he and Mahomes can make. [He] can throw from any angle, deceptively fast when forced to scramble and he's got the 'it' factor in crunch time."

Don't stop buying stock in Caleb Williams

Even the most passionate of Bears fans will admit that that anonymous coach's criticism of Williams is valid. Williams still has a lot of growing to do, but we already saw tremendous growth from Year 1 to Year 2, so why should Year 3 be any different?

At the end of the day, it's what quarterbacks do at the end of games that matter the most. That's when football games are won or lost, after all. When the Bears needed big plays from Williams in the Wild Card round, he showed up and delivered. On the Packers' final drive of that game, Jordan Love did not. He even fumbled the snap on the final play of the game.

That's not to say Love is a bad quarterback. He's very good. But Williams has already proven to be the guy you can rely on to win close games. The NFL is famously a game of inches, and playing your best when the margins are slimmest is something that can't be taught. Williams has that, and now it's up to him and Ben Johnson to polish up the rest of his game.

If Williams can start hitting those layups and show more down-to-down consistency, I see no reason why he can't be the Patrick Mahomes of the NFC.

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