Caleb Williams may or may not be the NFL’s next great quarterback.
Justin Fields may or may not be a viable NFL franchise quarterback still in the making.
There really is no way of knowing. That is the case even with a prospect as celebrated as Williams, the 2022 Heisman Trophy winner at Southern California who is widely expected to be the first player chosen in the NFL draft in April. Things simply must play out.
But the Chicago Bears aren’t able to allow things to play out. They have a consequential decision to make. They must predict and project. And they cannot be wrong. All that’s at stake is the on-field future of their franchise for the next decade or so.
The Bears possess the No. 1 pick in the draft courtesy of last year’s trade with the Carolina Panthers that enabled the Panthers to move up and use the top selection on quarterback Bryce Young. The Bears also have Fields on their roster. Three seasons into his NFL career, he has not developed into an upper-tier quarterback. But he has demonstrated some signs of being a capable starter.
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The Bears could keep the No. 1 pick and use it on Williams, an approach that probably would entail them trading Fields. Or they could retain Fields, trade the top draft choice for a major haul of other selections — and perhaps players — to fortify the roster.
Of course, if the Bears believe Williams is a transformative player — a quarterback prospect too good to pass up no matter the trade offer — it’s not much of a decision.
“I lean heavily in favor of taking Caleb Williams,” Daniel Jeremiah, a draft analyst for the NFL Network, said last week. “Unless you’ve got the offer of all offers, which is a combination of picks and players that is literally too good to turn down, it’d have to blow me away to move off of that pick. … There aren’t perfect players. Caleb is not a perfect player. Caleb is going to require some patience and assembly there. But the ability is off the charts.”
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This draft class is top-heavy with prominent quarterbacks. It’s possible that Williams, North Carolina’s Drake Maye and LSU’s Jayden Daniels will be the first three players taken in April. But as the draft evaluation process intensifies for teams this week at the scouting combine in Indianapolis, so much revolves around Williams and the Bears’ decision. They also have the draft’s No. 9 pick.
“You’ve got to be smart [about] how you get him going and get him up and running,” Jeremiah said of Williams. “But I think the upside there, the tools there, are pretty dang elite. And while I hear the argument of ‘build up the whole roster and think about the whole team,’ I’m like: ‘Yeah, well, I know one or two Super Bowls every 10 years you’ll get a Nick Foles magic carpet ride with an unbelievable team. The rest of them seem to be won by the Patrick Mahomes and Tom Bradys of the world, the elite guys.’”
The Bears have not yet tipped their hand. Shane Waldron, their new offensive coordinator, said at his introductory news conference last week he’s confident his system will work with Fields or a rookie at quarterback.
Waldron said he exchanged messages with Fields. When he was asked what intrigued him about the Bears’ quarterback situation, he mentioned both the draft choice situation and the state of the roster.
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“Obviously it’s a unique spot in the draft to have the first overall pick, the ninth overall pick,” Waldron said. “Just from an organization in general, it’s not going to happen too often. … And then also a core group of players that are already in place on offense, including the quarterback, that played at a high level and have displayed the ability to win football games and make plays.”
Fields said last week on “St. Brown Brothers,” the podcast hosted by NFL wide receivers Amon-Ra and Equanimeous St. Brown, that “of course” he wants to stay with the Bears, adding, “I can’t see myself playing in another place.” But mostly, he said, he wants to know the outcome.
“It’s a business,” Fields said on the podcast. “I ain’t got no control over it. So whatever happens, happens. But I feel like the biggest thing with all this going on right now, I just want it to be over.”
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The Bears have gone 10-28 in Fields’s 38 NFL starts since they traded up to select him 11th in the 2021 draft. They have not finished above third place in the NFC North in his three seasons. But there have been enough flashes to wonder what could happen with a better team around him.
None of that matters, of course, if the Bears are convinced Williams, the former Gonzaga High standout, can develop into an NFL quarterback capable of Mahomes-like exploits.
“You’re going to have Patrick Mahomes’s name come up,” Jeremiah said. “And, look, you don’t want to compare somebody to the best player on the planet. But just in terms of how he kind of plays with the creativity and the whole flair and all the different types of throws he can make in terms of driving the ball, layering the ball, extending plays, all those things, there are some similarities there.”
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The Washington Commanders have the No. 2 selection and could attempt to trade up a spot to reunite Williams with Kliff Kingsbury, their new offensive coordinator who spent last season on USC’s coaching staff as a senior offensive analyst. It’s not clear where Williams would prefer to play — or whether that preference matters to the Bears.
There are alternate scenarios that could keep the Bears’ decision from being strictly a choice between Williams and Fields. They could retain Fields to pair him with a prized rookie quarterback. They could trade down in the draft order and select a different quarterback.
But if they take Williams and trade Fields, practically no one in the NFL would be surprised. Much would be expected of Williams. He was not as dazzling in his final season at USC as he had been while winning the Heisman Trophy the season before. He will enter the NFL amid considerable fanfare while facing intense scrutiny. And unlike Mahomes, he probably will be an immediate starter.
“Pat needed some time to clean some things up and got a chance to sit for a year,” Jeremiah said. “Obviously I don’t think Caleb’s going to be afforded the same luxury in that department. But I think you can put a plan in place where you put more on his plate the longer that he goes.”
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