AAmong the NFL’s heirloom teams, the Chicago Bears are one team still living in the last century and the pride of league founder “Papa Bear” George Halas.From their neoclassical stadium to their 101-year-old matriarch to their response to “bear weather” (ie: lake effect) winter conditions only affect other team), everything about the franchise is old school. Even if the Bears were able to select a quarterback with the No. 1 pick in this month’s draft, that would be about 30 years too late in a league dominated by the passing game. Remarkably, the passerby they saw was not the second coming of 1940s hero Sid Luckman, or someone from Harvard or some other statuesque golden boy. This is Caleb Williams, the quintessential Gen Z quarterback.
On the surface, Williams appears to have what owner and matriarch Virginia McCaskey describes as “the cat’s pajamas.” He went to USC — a college football program that many Notre Dame fans in Chicago at least respect. He won the Heisman Trophy, tied with early Bears two-way star Johnny Lujack. Williams played most of his college games at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, one of the few stadiums that rivals the history of Soldier Field, so he shouldn’t feel too bad about the uneven quality of the Bears’ natural home. snobbish.
The truth is, paper is a relic of the analog world that the Bears once dominated when they won eight championships before the Super Bowl era. Williams, on the other hand, is a product of our always-on age. Tom Brady wasn’t even born when he was drafted, and he marched at his own pace. The 22-year-old gets pumped up for the game by listening to non-Zoomer John Legend’s “Ordinary People,” which is… a choice. Pushing the limits of fashion, he gained notoriety when he posed for GQ wearing a red dress, white athletic socks and sneakers. This is not comfortable for old-school football fans. “I wouldn’t draft him with my No. 1 pick,” a Barstool sports commentator posted on TikTok. “I won’t even explain it. I’m trading draft picks.
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Keyboard warriors lost their minds again when Williams showed up to a USC women’s basketball game this month with his nails painted to match his pink iPhone and wallet — and, predictably, some people This was thought to indicate that Williams might have been gay and therefore unfit to be gay. (Never mind that Williams has a girlfriend, and besides, Carl Nassib proved that few people actually care about the sexual orientation of professional football players.) “The most important traits of a leader are confidence, security in themselves, boldness, and allowing everyone to Everybody cares about you being ahead and wanting to follow you,” NFL Network’s Kyle Brandt said in defense of Williams.
Like many modern paragons of masculinity, Williams often painted his nails to add a little extra flair and sometimes send a subtle message to his opponents. Fucking UtahHis writing for the 2022 game against the Utes, however, was less subtle, with Williams destined to live in infamy after leaving USC without even beating the Utes once. . Bears legend Jim McMahon mocked the commissioner’s headband as odd by comparison.
Williams was more than disrespectful. Unable to contain himself, he took to social media to lash out at writers who had the audacity to insinuate him.Never experienced adversity” — their way of suggesting he was taking a stand against the stereotype of black athletes. Williams was also one of the first college football stars to take advantage of the transfer portal, transferring to USC from Oklahoma State with a clear intention to continue his development under coach Lincoln Riley and with the former Arizona Cardinals. Led by team captain and quarterback whisperer Kliff Kingsbury, who was ready for the pro game now takes charge of Washington’s offense.Until a few months ago, there was speculation that Williams, who tied his destiny to Kingsbury and Washington, D.C. — whose hometown team would select him with the second overall pick in this year’s draft — was a more The likely landing spot is not Chicago, where he reportedly has no interest in playing.
All of this deepens Bears fans’ loyalty to Justin Fields, the quarterback the team drafted with the 11th overall pick three years ago. When Chicago hosted Atlanta on New Year’s Eve, 62,000 fans at Chicago’s Soldier Field chanted, “We want Fields” as he led the Bears to a 37-17 victory. The route to the Bears’ suburban training facility was lined with campaign signs that read “We Believe in Justin.” But in March, Chicago sent Fields to Pittsburgh, essentially making room to bring in Williams — who even made Fields, the quintessential young football player with a need to prove himself, look like a Grumpy old player.
Williams could have turned pro at the end of the 2022 Heisman season, but chose to stay in school to avoid being drafted first by Carolina — the Krampets and the Astor-style Bruins selected. (Given the chaos the team was in last season, who wouldn’t say it wasn’t the right move?) He was heavily criticized for the decision, which was based on the advice of his father, Carl – who, among other things, has always been his favorite. Quick to point out that his son, already the top zero-earner in college sports, will be motivated by more than just money. In fact, rumors last July that Carr had asked potential agents if they were willing to negotiate ownership stakes with NFL teams were all but confirmed when the league’s owners voted to ban “non-family employees” from acquiring team equity. “It’s almost better that he doesn’t get drafted than he gets drafted first,” Carr told GQ in February. “The system is completely behind the times.”
Since then, Carr has been viewed by league insiders as a bad influence — not surprising, since the NFL Draft is essentially a sensational TV show about black men losing their fathers. To too many armchair pundits, his Zoomer son seemed destined to be as out of place with the Bears as the 90-inch plasma screen in the Victorian living room (above the fireplace, where a Rembrandt painting once held pride of place), some There was concern that Williams might actually fail like the USC Todd Marinovich Lab project.
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If Williams is too picky, it’s because there isn’t much to criticize in terms of his actual talent. Over the course of his college career, he was touted time and time again as the second version of Patrick Mahomes, adept at executing the play when it was written and improvising when things went wrong. Like Mahomes, Williams can throw every throw you can think of, and quite a few throws you can’t—or, as one scout put it, “holy crap” throws. As the draft approaches, pro talent evaluators are starting to compare him to Aaron Rodgers — another quarterback who, ahem, does things a different way and one the Bears are very familiar with.
Maybe a decade ago, when Bears football was still built around running backs, heroic linebackers and other midway monsters, they might have been the last team to use the No. 1 pick on a generational passer — let alone Talking about people of black and Native American ancestry. (Some of us Bears fans are old enough to remember that black stars like Vince Evans and Cordell Stewart earned a small margin in the team’s broader support.)
Yet, while fans outside of Chicago didn’t notice, the Bears did what many thought was impossible: They evolved. Instead of having family members run the team and being ripped off by hot young general managers, they’re handing over leadership to Chiefs front-office grinder Ryan Poles – by the way By the way, he is also black. (EgazWhat will happen to Papa Bear? think! Keenan Allen is a reliable receiver acquired via a trade with the Los Angeles Chargers last month. Pole seems to know what he’s looking for in a championship team, something Bears fans haven’t experienced since Mike Ditka and Buddy Ryan both walked off the field after nearly perfect seasons in 1985 .
Most encouraging of all: Despite reports to the contrary, Williams not only think In Chicago; he smiled without hesitation fancy dress Fans speculated he might wear it on draft day. “Wait wait; y’all look at the draft day suit and my ladies’ dress,” he wrote in response to one sartorial speculation, a cover image from Young Thug’s 2016 mixtape that evoked a geisha.
The world may not be ready for a star quarterback with such self-righteousness and subversion of perception. But the league’s most legalistic team has so far stuck only to tradition. Williams at least gave them the closest possible direction to the future.
