'Why duck?' New Bears QB Caleb Williams elevates expectations rather than tempering them

Nam Y. Huh/AP

As he settled into his new home amid mountainous expectations, Caleb Williams embraced everything about the pressure and scrutiny he’ll face as the next Bears quarterback. The hype is unprecedented after the team picked him No. 1 in the draft, but Williams might be unprecedented, too.

Not only is he one of the most sparkling college prospects in recent history, so much so that he was projected as the top pick in this draft more than a year ago, but he already seems like a bolder and brighter personality than the Bears have had at quarterback in decades.

Williams was loose and likable on Day 1 at Halas Hall less than 24 hours after the Bears drafted him first overall and he’s eager to take his shot changing the franchise’s trajectory — a challenge too great for Justin Fields, Mitch Trubisky and a string of predecessors.

He grabbed a chair Friday like he’d been invited to a party, smiled at a packed media room and said, “Hey everybody! Chicago!” The questions quickly turned to expectations, and as he has done for months, Williams ramped them up rather than trying to rein them in or duck them.

“What’s the reason to duck? It’s here,” he said. “I’m excited. Everybody’s excited. The Bears fans are excited from what I’ve heard and seen, and there’s no reason to duck. Attack it head first and go get it.”

Williams said last week he intends to exceed the spectacular season Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud just had as a rookie, and when asked Friday if he expects to be great right away, he replied, “Why wouldn’t I?”

“If there’s growing pains, you handle them,” he continued. “But that doesn’t mean that affects your greatness. Why would I go somewhere, work so hard for so many years and in every situation believe I’m the best, and then I get here and I don’t believe that?”

In every possible way, Williams feels like a breath of fresh air for a franchise that desperately needed it. This is a different type of quarterback and a compelling personality.

He can’t fully know what he’s getting into until it’s truly underway and he steps onto the grass at Soldier Field in front of 60,000-plus fans who will measure his career solely on the criteria of whether he wins a Super Bowl. That said, Williams is more prepared for this than any 22-year-old could be. He’s already been in the spotlight for a long time and had his most personal moments, such as crying with his mom after a loss, dissected and criticized.

“I’m always going to have scrutiny,” Williams said. “I do things like paint my nails. I’m always going to have scrutiny over that. I wear funky clothes, things like that. So you know, just do my job on the football field and win games. If you win a bunch of games here, you’ll make a lot of people happy.”

Fields came in guarded and buttoned up and stayed that way until last season when he finally aired some grievances about the coaching staff and the media. Trubisky had never been in the spotlight as an inexperienced quarterback from North Carolina and was welcomed to Chicago by being booed at a Bulls game. By the end, he was talking about turning the TVs off at Halas Hall.

Williams, meanwhile, has been under the microscope for years, especially since winning the Heisman Trophy at USC in 2022. Bears general manager Ryan Poles had his eye on him well before that, citing a 2021 game when Williams played for Oklahoma as the first moment that made him say, “Who is this kid?”

Williams was the most talked about player in college football the last two seasons. He was a multimillionaire long before the Bears drafted him and swaggered into his new job wearing a $75,000 Patek Philippe watch with an orange strap. Everything about his game and character was nitpicked leading up the draft. He’s been living in the big time for a long time.

“Everybody has their own opinions about me,” he said. “Y’all have a job; I have a job. That’s the perspective I put it in.

“I’m gonna crack jokes. I’m gonna have fun with it. We’re gonna have a good time. It’s gonna be fun winning a lot of games and coming up in front of y’all. Let’s have fun and enjoy.”

Fun? Bears quarterbacks rarely have been fun.

For all the charm and confidence Williams injected into the facility Friday, real fun starts with winning. It’s been a long time since any quarterback won with this team.

The Bears have gone 10-24 under Poles and coach Matt Eberflus, which followed Matt Nagy’s plunge from a division championship in 2018 to 6-11 and getting swept out the door in 2021.

Poles has made a lot of smart moves to build the roster, but that won’t matter unless Williams delivers. It’s all riding on him. And Williams is perfectly comfortable with that.