by Among the NFL’s heirloom franchises, the Chicago Bears are the survivors of the last century – the pride of George “Papa Bear” Halas, the father of the league’s founder. From the neoclassical stadium to their 101-year-old owner-matriarch to their vague reverence for “Bear Weather” (ie, lake-effect winter conditions that only affect the winter. another team), it’s all about the old-fashioned franchise. Even the Bears are able to select a quarterback with the first pick in this month’s draft after coming about 30 years too late in a league dominated by the tight end. What is most remarkable is that the person who goes on his sight is not the second coming of the hero of the 1940s, Sid Luckman, or some other Harvard man or golden boy. Caleb Williams, quarterback is the poster boy of Gen Z.
On paper, Williams appears to have exactly the resume that Virginia McCaskey, the owner-matriarch in question, might describe as “the cat’s pajamas.” He went to USC – a college football program that many Notre Dame Chicagoland fans admire at least. He won the Heisman trophy, tying him with Bears two-way star Johnny Lujack. And Williams played most of his college games in LA’s Memorial Coliseum, one of the few remaining stadiums that can rival Soldier Field’s antiquity—so he shouldn’t be a snob about the shoddy quality of the natural turf. Bear.
Related: From the Bears to the Jets: teams to nail this year’s NFL draft
The thing is, paper is a relic of the analog world, the world the Bears once ruled, when they won eight championships before the Super Bowl. Williams, on the other hand, is a product of our constantly online age. He wasn’t even born when Tom Brady was drafted, and he marches to the beat of his own back. The 22-year-old psyches himself up for games by listening to the very un-Zoomer John Legend’s Normal People, which has … choice. He pushes the fashion envelope, infamously posing for GQ in a red dress with white gym socks and sneakers. That didn’t sit well with old-school football fans. “I’m not giving him my no1 pick,” one Barstool sports commentator posted on TikTok. “I’m not even going to explain it. I’m trading the pick.”
And keyboard crusaders lost their minds again when Williams showed up to a USC women’s basketball game this month with nails painted to match her pink iPhone and purse — which some predicted was a sign that Williams might being gay and, therefore, unfit to be a husband. face of an NFL franchise. (It goes without saying that Williams has a girlfriend and, moreover, Carl Nassib has shown more or less people who are interested in the sexuality of professional football players.) “The most important qualities in a leader are to be confident, being safe with yourself, being bold and having everyone. you’re leading trying to follow you,” NFL Network’s Kyle Brandt said of Williams’ defense.
Like many modern paragons of humanity, Williams often paints his fingers for a little extra flair, sometimes with subtle messages meant for his opponents. FUCK UTAH, which he wrote for the 2022 game against the Utes, was not so subtle, however, and was doomed to live infamy after Williams left USC without even beating the Utes once. That makes Bears legend commissioner Jim McMahon’s headbands look lonesome.
Williams isn’t just careless. It is irrepressible, asking social media to engage writers who have the temerity to recommend it “who are not experienced in confrontation” – which is how they imply that he plays against the stereotype of the Black athlete. Williams was also among the first college football stars to take advantage of the transfer portal, moving to USC from Oklahoma expressly to continue developing under coach Lincoln Riley and also prime himself for the pro game under whisperer QB Kliff Kingsbury, the former Arizona Cardinals manager. now running the Washington Commanders offense. Until a few months ago, speculation that Williams was tying his fate to Kingsbury and DC – his hometown franchise that will pick second overall in this year’s draft – was bigger a likely landing spot is Chicago, where he allegedly had no interest in playing.
All of this increased the loyalty Bears fans had for Justin Fields, the quarterback the team drafted with the 11th pick just three years ago. When Chicago hosted Atlanta on New Year’s Eve, 62,000 fans at Chicago’s Soldier Field chanted: “We want Fields” as he led the Bears to a 37-17 victory. There were campaign signs along the way to the Bears’ suburban practice facility that read “In Justin We Trustin’.” But in March, Chicago sent Fields to Pittsburgh, essentially clearing room to bring in Williams — which even makes Fields, your typical young ballplayer with a point to prove, look like an old curmudgeon.
Williams could have turned for the country at the end of his Heisman season in 2022, but chose to stay in school so Carolina wouldn’t pick him first – the Clampetts to the Astor-like Bears. (And given the mess the team turned into last season, who wouldn’t say it wasn’t the right call?) The decision was slammed, taken on the advice of his father, Carl – who, in among other things, is quick to point out that his son, who is already earning zero college sports, will be motivated by more than just money. Indeed, rumors were confirmed last July that Carl asked potential agents if they would be comfortable negotiating with NFL teams for ownership stakes when league owners voted to prohibit “non-family employees” from taking equity in teams. “It almost would have been better not to draft him than to be drafted first,” Carl told GQ in February. “The system is completely backwards.”
Since then, Carl has been dismissed by league insiders as a bad influence – no surprise since the NFL draft is, in essence, a controversial television show about the absence of a Black father. And in the case of too many armchair comments, his son Zoomer seems out of place on the Bears and a 90in plasma screen inside a Victorian drawing room (above the fireplace, where the Rembrandt once had pride of place), with some fear for Williams. it could be as big a bust as Todd Marinovich’s USC lab project.
If Williams is being nitpicked too much, it’s because there isn’t much to criticize when it comes to his own talent. Time and time again during his college career, he looked like the second coming of Patrick Mahomes, adept at making plays as they were laid out, and improvising when things broke down. Like Mahomes, Williams can make all the throws you can make and some you can’t — or, as one guy calls them, “holy shit” throws. As the draft approaches, pro talent evaluators have compared him to Aaron Rodgers – another QB known for, ahem, doing things differently, and a guy the Bears are hauntingly familiar with.
Maybe ten years ago, when Bears football was still built around bell runners, game-winning running backs and other Monsters of the Midway, they would have been the last team to use a top pick on a passer. generations – not to mention one with Black and Native American ancestry. . (Some of us Bears fans are old enough to remember the slim margins Black stars like Vince Evans and Kordell Stewart were given among the team’s broader supporters.)
But even though football fans outside of Chicago weren’t looking, the Bears did something that many didn’t think possible: they came out on top. They stopped allowing family members to run the franchise or be taken in by the hot young GM prospect and the reins turned over to the Chiefs front office grinder Ryan Poles – who, incidentally, is also Black. (Clotheswhat wouldPapa Bear think!) The Poles were given unprecedented authority to move the team on from Fields and other popular players and rebuild around new faces like Williams and Keenan Allen, a surefire receiver who arrived via trade with the Los Angeles Chargers last month. It’s almost as if Poles knows what he’s looking for in a championship team, something Bears fans haven’t experienced since Mike Ditka and Buddy Ryan were both carted off the field after a nearly flawless 1985 season.
Most exciting: Williams isn’t alone, despite reports to the contrary wanting being in Chicago; he does not hesitate to laugh the outlandish outfits fans speculate that he could spend on draft day. “Wait until; you’ll see a day suit and my women’s outfit,” he wrote in response to one guess, the geisha-inspired cover image from Young Thug’s 2016 mixtape.
Maybe the world isn’t ready for an attitude-bending star QB with so much self-possession. But the league’s most obscure franchise has so far bucked tradition. At the very least, Williams points them in the direction closest to the future.
