National Football League

What the Bears need from QB Caleb Williams in his rookie season

Published Aug. 14, 2024 4:16 p.m. ET

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Carmen Vitali

NFC North Reporter

We've heard a lot about what expectations should be for rookie quarterback Caleb Williams and the 2024 Chicago Bears.

The NFC North is stacked, with two playoff teams sitting at the top — the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions, the latter of whom went to the NFC title game last year.

The Bears have a whole lot of new, especially offensively — which is a good thing. It feels like this is the final stage of a multi-season rebuild that general manager Ryan Poles started back in 2022. He's spent the past few offseasons curating a landing spot to drop in a rookie quarterback and start building.

Chicago didn't just get a rookie quarterback, it got the rookie quarterback with the first pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. And Williams now has an embarrassment of riches to work with.

In fact, ESPN's Dan Orlovsky recently ranked the receiving corps of the NFC North, including tight ends, and there's a case to be made for each of the four teams to have the top spot.

The Bears' top three receivers are now DJ Moore, Keenan Allen and ninth-overall pick Rome Odunze. Tight end Cole Kmet factors in for the purposes of this argument, and so does veteran TE Gerald Everett, who was with new offensive coordinator Shane Waldron in Seattle. Waldron loves using his tight ends. Judging from the first preseason game, he also likes using multiple running backs and even — wait for it — a fullback. 

With all this in place, and with all that in mind, let me switch up the conversation.

We shouldn't be talking about what Williams should do this season. Instead, we should be asking what he needs to do.

The answer, in my humble opinion, isn't much.

To break the Bears' rookie quarterback records, Williams would need to record just 2,300 passing yards and 12 touchdowns. He could conceivably do that by Halloween.

To break the Bears' all-time single-season quarterback records, he would need to reach 4,000 yards and 30 touchdowns. No Chicago quarterback has ever done either of those things. 

While that would be a ton of fun, and is completely conceivable, it doesn't need to happen. 

Is Caleb Williams already the NFC's No. 1 QB?

The Bears defense was a top-five unit by the end of last season, especially in the secondary. Chicago ball-hawked its way to 19 takeaways in just the last seven games of the season. Eighteen of those 19 takeaways were interceptions. In the third year of playing in Matt Eberflus' scheme, the defense has all the continuity and a solid foundation to rely on while the new-look offense finds its footing. 

After the Week 13 bye last season, Chicago's defense allowed an average of just 17.8 points. Scoring 19 points a game shouldn't be too tall a task even for this revamped offense.

The offensive scheme itself is different, but it starts out relatively simple. Waldron comes from the Kyle Shanahan/Sean McVay tree, which features schemes built upon simple base concepts. Waldron's mid-zone scheme also helps the big boys up front, seeking out double teams along the offensive line so as not to put too much pressure on blockers to win battles outright. We should see more variety in the run game, too.

The biggest thing Williams will likely have to master is play-action, which he already seemed comfortable with in the limited work he got in Buffalo last weekend. Turning your back to the defense as a quarterback and resetting yourself can be hard, but it can also delay pressure brought by opposing defenses and further help the offensive line.

How impressive was Caleb Williams' preseason debut?

With the offensive arsenal in Chicago, there should be a variety of throws available to Williams and open options on nearly every play. Having to contend with Moore, Allen and Odunze at the same time won't be easy for opponents. Defenses can only account for so many weapons. Add in guys like D'Andre Swift and Khalil Herbert in the backfield, or Kmet chipping his way into a route, and confusion should be an easy ally for this offense.

That works well for an offensive coordinator whose team ranked eighth in pass percentage last season. Waldron called a pass play 64.6% of the time in Seattle last year. The Bears are going to need that volume to feed all the pass-catchers they have. 

From there, it's just up to Williams to distribute the ball. He doesn't need to consistently make the jaw-dropping plays or put the team on his back anytime soon. Williams enters perhaps the best situation ever for a quarterback drafted first overall. That was by design. Poles wanted to make sure he was taking as much pressure as possible off the young signal-caller, knowing the quarterback-starved Chicago market would put enough on him.

There's also what happened to the past two quarterbacks the Bears drafted. The most recent was Justin Fields, who in 2021 inherited an 8-8 team coming off a wild-card loss. That put pressure on the Bears to succeed with Fields right away. Sure enough, head coach Matt Nagy and general manager Ryan Pace were fired after the team went 6-11 in Fields' first season.

That would be bad enough if it hadn't been the second straight time it happened. Mitch Trubisky was drafted into even worse circumstances, inheriting a 3-13 team. His head coach, John Fox, was fired after Trubisky's first season, after the team only marginally improved to 5-11.

The pressure is now on Poles and Williams to break this cycle, though neither is responsible for it.

If Williams can just manage the talent around him and Waldron can install his offense quickly, a winning season for the Bears, who are playing a fourth-place schedule, shouldn't be too tall a task. That's all Chicago needs to do this season to show that Poles' plan is working.

Opening up division play by beating the Packers at home in Week 11 wouldn't hurt, either.

Carmen Vitali is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. Carmen had previous stops with The Draft Network and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. She spent six seasons with the Bucs, including 2020, which added the title of Super Bowl Champion (and boat-parade participant) to her résumé. You can follow Carmen on Twitter at @CarmieV. 

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Chicago Bears

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Caleb Williams

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Carmen Vitali