Chicago Bears No. 1 pick and rookie quarterback Caleb Williams’ season-long struggles have him paying attention to how he sounds in his head.
“With that, it makes the days better, it makes—when you’re going through a tough patch—it makes those days a little bit easier rather than pulling yourself down, telling yourself you’re this and that.”
Entering the season with enormous expectations, Williams and the Bears (4–10) haven’t delivered. Williams has completed 61.9 percent of his passes for 2,937 yards passing for 17 touchdowns versus five interceptions, and he’s been sacked 58 times. On the ground, Williams has 408 yards rushing but no touchdowns on 67 carries.
The positives of what Williams has done in his rookie season haven’t been enough to elevate a Bears franchise that has owned the No. 1 pick for the past two years. Williams shined at USC in college, where he won the Heisman Trophy in 2022, and scouts and media alike considered him a generational talent. Regardless of past achievements and what Williams believes about others’ views of him, he’s focused on reminding himself about what he can do and become in the NFL.
“Like I said, it sounds kind of crazy, but I tell myself certain things: ‘I am great. I will be great.’ All these different things,” Williams said. “So, I think that’s one of the biggest things, is not pulling yourself down and being gracious with yourself.”
It’s arguably taking more grace by the week for Williams as the Bears remain mired in an eight-game losing streak with the 12–2 Detroit Lions around the corner on Dec. 22. Williams is fresh off of a performance where he went 18–31 for 191 yards and a touchdown amid a 25.3 quarterback rating in a 30–12 loss to the Minnesota Vikings (12–2) on Monday.
“Losing is one of those things that really affects me,” Williams said. “It’s tough. But I do have the understanding of where I’m at in my career and where I'll be at. Having that [understanding] is important for me, myself internally, because internally it’s tough.
“Internally, when tough times happen, just human nature is to do the opposite of what you’re doing or what you’ve been doing and all these different things. The toughest part is fighting yourself, especially when there’s tough times.”
Accuracy remains a problem for Williams, who is 29th in the league for passing accuracy for quarterbacks with at least 44 passing attempts. He’s also last among the four first-round rookie quarterbacks who have thrown at least 279 passes this season.
“It’s frustrating,” Williams said. “I hate missing passes, especially ones that I’ve been pretty consistent on for a good amount of time.
“That’s coming. The progress has, over this football season, it’s been growing for myself and things like that of routes and combinations of routes put together and seeing all these different defenses and throwing all these footworks together. The progress has been on a steady trend upwards, but I would say it is pretty frustrating on missing some of these passes that I’ve missed.”
Amid the frustration and battle of the mind, Williams writes down how he can specifically improve going forward.
“I would say all from pre-snap stuff to even post-snap, whether it’s footwork, whether it’s pre-snap and recognizing what they’re in, if they rotate to here, how fast can I get to this, how fast can I get to that route, this alert, that alert,” Williams said. “So, I got a good amount of stuff that I’m planning on going over.”
