Going 1st, 2nd in 2024 draft was beginning, not end, of conversation about Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels
For as long as they’re in the NFL, and perhaps beyond, Bears quarterback Caleb Williams and Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels will be measured against each other.
That started before they ever reached the league as they won the Heisman Trophy in back-to-back years and emerged as the top prospects in the quarterback-rich 2024 draft class. The Bears took Williams No. 1 out of USC, Daniels went second out of LSU to the Commanders and four others were selected in the top 12 picks.
Williams was the runaway favorite, widely deemed the more pro-ready of the two, then Daniels flipped that notion upside down with a tremendous rookie season.
As they square off again Monday at Northwest Stadium, about 20 minutes from where Williams grew up in Maryland, Daniels is decisively the man to beat. He won Offensive Rookie of the Year last season, led his team to a 12-5 record and the NFC Championship Game and ranked top-11 in completion percentage, touchdown passes and passer rating.
Williams is scrambling to catch up after a middling rookie season and a reboot under new coach Ben Johnson. He’s off to a promising start this season, but has a long way to go in his own development and to pull even with Daniels.
As rookies, Daniels outpaced him in passer rating (100.1 to 87.8), completion percentage (69 to 62.5), touchdown passes (25 to 20) and yards passing and rushing per game (262.3 to 237.1). Williams has nibbled at the deficit by playing slightly better than Daniels at the start of this season.
No. 12 pick Bo Nix went to the Broncos and threw for more yards and touchdown passes as a rookie than either of them and made it to the playoffs as well.
Johnson liked the quarterback class at large and especially Williams and Daniels as he did his routine study of prospects leading up to that draft as Lions offensive coordinator and ultimately bet big on Williams by taking this job. After watching him go up and down under inept coaching as a rookie, Williams was still, “part of the reason why I wanted to come here, and I haven’t been disappointed with him whatsoever,” Johnson said.
He viewed them as similarly skilled, highlighting Williams’ “elite arm strength and ability to extend plays” as well as Daniels being “an extremely accurate thrower” who is “so dynamic with his legs.” They’re perfectly built for a rivalry and could run into each other frequently playing in the same conference.
“These are two ascending quarterbacks,” Johnson said. “We’re going to be talking about them for a long time.”
Not only did Daniels outplay Williams as a rookie, he won their head-to-head battle nearly a year ago as well. Neither was particularly great until the end, when Williams led the Bears to a go-ahead touchdown in the final minute, then Daniels upstaged him with heave to the end zone — the “Fail Mary” — for the win.
That one was tough for Williams to stomach in many respects. It’s obviously a brutal way to lose, but it also spoiled his first game of any kind in the Washington, D.C., area since starring at Gonzaga College High School. That defeat sent the Bears’ season spiraling, too, as they lost their next nine games and finished 5-12.
Williams acknowledged the homecoming aspect made the loss sting a little more, but said he wasn’t “going down the rabbit hole” of getting revenge for that game or anything else extraneous.
“Last year, going into this game, where he was as a player and as a person in this locker room, he’s just totally different at this point,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “It’s been cool to see his growth. He’s become more focused on just what’s going on here and less concerned with what’s going on outside. I’m sure he’s aware of the story lines and all that, but I don’t think it’s taking up his thoughts as much as it was at this point last year.”
As always with the Bears, it’s all talk until Williams turns the hypotheticals into proof. The organization long held out hope for Mitch Trubisky and Justin Fields to turn the corner and become franchise quarterbacks, and that never materialized. They believe everything is in place for Williams to make the jump, but wins over the hapless Cowboys and Raiders are hardly a convincing argument.
And while Williams has never said anything specifically about overtaking Daniels, it’s implied. He went into the draft talking about winning more Super Bowls than Tom Brady, so he’ll have to beat Daniels to get there.
When Daniels was asked last week about natural competition between the top two picks, he said, “He got drafted No.1; I got drafted No.2. Nothing we could do to change that.”
That’s not really the case, though. The draft was the beginning of the argument, not the end.
The reality is they’re doing something about it every week as they strive to stand on top. Each performance is part of the equation of determining who’s better, and that’s never more true than when they face each other.