Bear Digest

What Caleb Williams Told Maxx Crosby Will Bring a Smile to Bears Fans

Bears QB marks an appearance on "The Rush" podcast and relays insight on his own personal successes from last season to the Raiders' "game wrecker."
Gene Chamberlain|
Caleb Williams looks for a receiver with Maxx Crosby closing in during last season's 25-24 Bears win at Las Vegas.
Caleb Williams looks for a receiver with Maxx Crosby closing in during last season's 25-24 Bears win at Las Vegas. | Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images

In this story:

Chicago Bears

Caleb Williams is on hiatus at the urging of Bears coach Ben Johnson, and his time away included talking about his second season on a podcast with a player on the tip of many Bears fans' tongues these days, Maxx Crosby.

What Williams told Crosby in a lengthy interview on Crosby's "The Rush" podcast is sure to please every Bears fan.

"I'm actually itching to get back to it, to be honest," Williams said. "I'm fighting myself right now because I do know that rest and getting away is extremely important. So I'm fighting the urge right now."

It's the taste of victory and passing success that has Williams wanting to be back out on the field right away. He's going to need to wait until just before the draft in April to get back to work, though.

"Yeah, I'm excited to get back, especially after the work, seeing the work, feeling it, going through it, going through the tough of last year but also going through he tough of this year with a new coach, a tough coach and having to learn so much and then the benefits of it," Williams told Crosby and podcast sidekick Brogan Roback. "Just winning ... it's one of the best feelings in the world, going back to that locker room and things like that, after those interviews or shaking hands, and things like that, and partying with your boys in the locker room is unbeatable.”

Williams lauded the Chicago fans and Bears ownership for the energy during their incredible turnaround that featured seven fourth-quarter rallies for victories.

Who Williams credited

Roback, a former NFL QB, and Crosby sought to get from Williams an underlying cause or flashpoint for the entire Bears comeback run in the 2025 season beyond the obvious contribution made by Ben Johnson and coaches, but Williams would have none of it. It all flowed from one source, he said.

"I can credit not to anybody but Ben and his staff," Williams said. "The control that they had of the situation, the belief and confidence they had in themselves, they sacrificed to get this going. Ben got hired and they were to work immediately."

The entire experience of the first season led Williams to conclude something about himself and it also probably explains why he's itching to get back on the field.

"I'd say I'm probably an adrenaline junky and this is probably the job for it," he added.

Williams admitted the pressures of starting out with hype like he did can get to a player and that he felt he wasn't as prepared for the league as he thought he'd be when he entered it in 2024. Then Johnson turned that around to start Year 2.

After that rough first year under Matt Eberflus, Williams was looking for a bit of reassurance and started looking up stats of some of the great QBs in the past.

"I went back and looked at other guys, the legends, not everybody," he said. "Peyton Manning, Tom (Brady), all these guys, their first one, two, three, four years."

He found interception totals in the 20s and didn't feel too bad about himself. Manning threw 100 interceptions in his first five seasons, including 28 as a rookie. So, Williams couldn't be down about his six-interception rookie year.

The determination he made was how it comes from trial and error and patience. He credited his patient teachers in Year 2 and voiced the opinion too many teams' ownerships lack patience and rush through QBs too soon, citing Sam Darnold as the perfect example.

"Those 27-, 25-pick seasons don't happen anymore," Williams said.

Maybe the most interesting part of the podcast that lasts more than an hour is Crosby talking about getting ready to face Johnson's offense with Williams running it in 2025.

Not having a good example to refer back to last season, he got film of a game in 2023 when the Lions played his Raiders under Josh McDaniel and looked at that to determine how he could "wreck” the gameplan that Ben Johnson was scheming. He then realized this would be something completely different.

"Caleb can run," Crosby said. "Jared Goff ain't running nowhere."

Crosby picked appropriate words to end the interview while comparing Williams to some of the game's best at this point.

"You're one of those guys and you're just getting started," Crosby said.

More Chicago Bears News

X: BearsOnSI

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.