LAKE FOREST, Ill. — When Caleb Williams was a freshman at Oklahoma in 2021, Sooners head coach Lincoln Riley left the team for the University of Southern California. Riley’s move was announced just one day after Oklahoma lost to rival Oklahoma State.
Williams, though, still had one more game to play for interim coach Bob Stoops. A month later, Williams and Oklahoma defeated Oregon 47-32 in the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio. Williams was 21-for-27 passing for 242 yards and three touchdowns.
Williams would eventually follow Riley to USC, but he said Wednesday at Halas Hall that his final weeks at Oklahoma come to mind as an experience to draw from after the Bears fired coach Matt Eberflus last week after only 12 games together.
“Obviously, it’s a little different when now it’s the NFL and that’s a man that has a family, a man that ended up getting fired,” Williams said. “There’s a human part to it. And there’s a business side, too, that you have to understand. … Roll with the punches from there.”
Williams’ three games with Thomas Brown as his offensive coordinator after the firing of Shane Waldron showed that he can bob and weave quite well through change. He’s just looking for that knockout punch that delivers his team its first win since Oct. 13 in London.
The Bears are 0-3 against the Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions this season, but they were in all three of those games because of what Williams was doing with Brown as his play caller. Brown and Williams were a blocked field goal away from beating the Packers in their debut together at Soldier Field.
According to TruMedia, Williams dropped back to pass a league-high 140 times in those three games against the NFC North. In that span, he produced a 0.14 EPA (expected points added) per dropback (seventh in the NFL), 24.4 total QB EPA (sixth) and a 99.2 passer rating (11th).
The change from Waldron to Brown has seemingly helped Williams improve on game days. Maybe that’s why Williams said he isn’t worried that his development will be hindered by Eberflus’ firing and another promotion for Brown. Instead, he described everything that has transpired this season as a “steppingstone” for him.
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“I wouldn’t say that I’m happy for it,” he said. “Having these moments is definitely something that will help me in the future. Having these situational moments (in games) that it’s hard to rep in practice, having some of these moments, having your coach fired or coaches fired and people being promoted — things like that all happening within a couple weeks of each other, I think it would help me in the long run being able to handle all of this. (It’s) being able to handle this first year and being able to grow from it.”
It sounds like a lot. But Williams seemingly accepts and embraces it. In the NFL, change is inevitable. Retaining Brown past this season would provide Williams with continuity, but there likely will be other changes from new plays to new assistants to new teammates.
“Being able to handle it my first year, handle a new playbook, handle all these different changes, handle all of this, I think it definitely will help the development instead of hurting it or anything like that,” Williams said.
.@CALEBcsw with a dime to @idjmoore 😮💨
📺: #CHIvsDET on CBS pic.twitter.com/TUZzXawnf7
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) November 28, 2024
It’s easy to have a glass-half-full approach when you’re a rookie and playing well. But by all accounts, Brown has injected some life into the team. Even Williams acknowledged that change has been good.
“I wouldn’t say a new voice was needed. I would say there was change that was needed,” Williams said. “And that goes from what Thomas was talking about, accountability, unifying each other, us being on each other whether it’s coaches, players, us communicating, us doing all these different things.”
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The Lions, Vikings and Packers are three of the best teams in the league, and the Bears lost to them by a combined seven points. The Bears are also a 4-8 team with a plus-1 point differential. That would seemingly suggest that they aren’t an awful team but arguably an underachieving one.
“My goal has always been the same from day one as far as being in a leadership position,” Brown said. “My goal is to make people and situations better. So being consistent every single day with my message, being deliberate, finding ways to challenge the group but also uplift them because I do believe in them. I told them a minute ago after practice there is no confidence loss at all as far as what I think about them. I don’t care what anybody else thinks about them. I think we have a very talented football team. It’s about just putting the work in every single day to give us an opportunity to win.”
Brown will be judged by wins and losses — and what Williams does in them.
But he undoubtedly is getting a head start on his competition to coach the Bears past this season. His relationship with Williams is just starting. He didn’t have the same interactions with the rookie quarterback that Waldron and Eberflus had for most of the season. But what they’re doing already is clicking on game days.
“(Brown) has a certain demeanor about him, whether it’s showing up on time and getting on the guys, whether they’re older guys, younger guys obviously, and making sure accountability is really important in football terms and businesses and family and all these different things,” Williams said. “One of the most important things is accountability. He’s done a solid job so far with that and holding me accountable, holding all the guys accountable. That’s one of them. And just how he is. He’s a lead-by-example type of guy, and that’s been great.”
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(Photo: Mike Mulholland / Getty Images)
