Caleb Williams desperately wanted to avoid being drafted by Chicago Bears in 2024, new book reveals
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Caleb Williams desperately wanted to be picked by the Minnesota Vikings and not the Chicago Bears at the 2024 NFL Draft, a new book claims.
Williams was picked first by the Bears and endured a disruptive rookie season in the NFL, with head coach Matt Eberflus fired midway through the campaign and the team losing 10 straight games.
Now, an upcoming new book from ESPN’s Seth Wickersham reveals just how bad things were for the quarteback in his first year.
Williams and his family had a bad feeling about the franchise before being drafted, but the Bears stood firm and insisted they would be taking Williams.
‘Do I want to go there? I don’t think I can do it with Waldron,’ Williams reportedly told people around him about the then-Bears offensive coordinator Shane Waldron.
‘I need to go to the Vikings,’ the book says Williams told his father, Carl, after a meeting with Kevin O’Connell at the NFL combine.
Caleb Williams wanted to be drafted by the Minnesota Vikings, a new book claims
Carl was said to be in agreement with his son, reportedly telling multiple agents in the run-up to the draft: ‘I don’t want my son playing for the Bears.’
The quarterback out of USC is said to have changed his mind after a visit to Chicago, telling his dad: ‘I can do it for this team. I’m going to go to the Bears.’
During his rookie season, Williams apparently told his father that he wanted more guidance from senior figures such as Eberflus and Walden.
‘No one tells me what to watch, I just turn it (the film) on,’ ESPN claims he said.
Ironically, Williams and the Bears will start the 2025 season against the Minnesota Vikings at Soldier Field, with O’Connell starting with the quarterback he eventually took in the same draft as Williams in JJ McCarthy.
McCarthy injured his knee in preseason, meaning his rookie year was over it before it had properly begun.
The second game of the season sees Williams lead the Bears against the Detroit Lions, the team his new coach Ben Johnson left to take over in Chicago.
Johnson praised Williams at his introductory press conference and said that working with the quarterback was a key reason for joining the team.
‘You go back to the basics,’ Johnson said of his plan to get the best out of Williams.
‘It’s the fundamentals of the quarterback position: What’s our footwork going to look like under center? From the shotgun? What are we calling the formations? What’s the defensive identification going to look like? So that we’re all speaking the same language.
‘We’ve got to get on the same page because it’ll be a little bit different for him than what he experienced last year, and if we can mesh together and start speaking the same language, that’s when things will really start to take off.’
The Bears, who ended the season with a 5-12 record, are in one of the most cutthroat divisions in the NFL with the Vikings, Lions and Packers.
The second pick in the 2024 draft saw Washington Commanders take Jayden Daniels from LSU at quarterback – and he transformed the entire organization in a stunning first year in the NFL.
