The hype honeymoon is over for Bears rookie quarterback Caleb Williams. The next time he takes the field — Sept. 8 for the season opener against the Titans at Soldier Field — he’ll be graded on production rather than potential.
Drafting Williams first overall this year was a long-term play for the franchise, which hopes he becomes a decade-plus fixture a la Aaron Rodgers with the Packers, something unheard of for the Bears.
They were on the clock to pick Williams for what felt like forever. Officially, it was only a little more than three months, but virtually everyone was watching and waiting since the middle of last season or earlier. But now Williams is on the clock.
Rookies need time, and Williams will hit some speed bumps even if his first season goes well. The Bears have urgency, though, after building a playoff-ready roster for Williams to step into — a scenario widely thought to be unparalleled for a quarterback drafted this high.
That infrastructure — a built-out set of skill players on offense and a defense that can provide him extra margin — gives Williams every advantage. It also raises the stakes.
It’s rare to say this about a team with a rookie starting quarterback, but it’ll be impossible for the Bears to call this a good season if they miss the playoffs. They’re banking on Williams to be good — not necessarily great — right away.
The Bears are holding walkthroughs Sunday and Monday, and that likely will be the beginning of Williams’ preparation for the Titans. Coach Matt Eberflus said the staff did background work on all the opponents for this season throughout the offseason, but he had yet to start discussing any of that with Williams.
The schedule should give Williams a modest runway. Only two of his first nine opponents made the playoffs last season, and both — the Texans and Rams — were 10-7 wild cards. He’ll face five of the seven worst teams from last season in his first 10 weeks in the league, then a gauntlet awaits him down the stretch with all the NFC North games and the 49ers.
The Titans are in a rebuild after going 6-11 and firing coach Mike Vrabel. They don’t know whether they have a quarterback in Will Levis, and their defense allowed the sixth-highest passer rating in the NFL last season. When “Hard Knocks” showed Williams telling Eberflus that so far practices have been harder than games, that might hold true against the Titans, as well.
It’ll be a relatively low-profile debut for the NFL’s most attention-grabbing rookie. The league and its broadcast partners passed on setting up a more enticing matchup and putting Williams’ first game in one of its five prime-time slots for the opening weekend.
That’ll come against the Texans in Week 2, when Williams faces off against the player he’ll be chasing: C.J. Stroud.
Stroud delivered one of the most impressive rookie seasons of all time last year. He was fifth in the NFL with a 100.8 passer rating and got the Texans to the playoffs and won a game. Williams, always one to trumpet expectations rather than tamp them down, said he aims to exceed everything Stroud did.
There were signs throughout the last month or so that he has that capacity. Coaches and teammates can’t stop raving about his pocket awareness, ability to read coverages and uncanny accuracy. Before ever playing a game, it already appears that he’s a sharper passer than Justin Fields was in Year 3.
Williams completed 10 of 20 passes for 170 yards with no touchdown passes or turnovers for a 79.2 passer rating and ran two times for 20 yards and a touchdown in preseason games against the Bills and Bengals. In his eight possessions, he led the Bears to a touchdown and three field goals.
Eberflus talked in June about giving him 45 to 65 preseason snaps but went into August with a flexible mindset of getting him as much experience as he thought necessary. He played 42 snaps, and between what the Bears saw in that action and on the practice field in the last month, they believed he was ready to unveil.
“Post-snap, he’s been relatively good in terms of going through his progressions,” Eberflus said. “Making good decisions, taking care of the football in the pocket with two hands and moving around when he has had to do that. Overall, a good preseason for him.”
Williams is right where he should be, if not modestly ahead, but the real reveal will be in two weeks. It’ll be the toughest test he has ever taken.