NEWSLETTER
Chicago Bears fans are about to enter their Caleb Williams era.
And while it won’t become officially official until Thursday, what is becoming more apparent with each passing day is how thorough the vetting process was for the Bears before making the decision to pivot to Williams as their franchise quarterback.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter delivers a bunch of nuggets and tidbits ahead of this week’s NFL Draft. Among them was an anecdote about how Chicago’s football team took a different approach when Caleb Williams came to town for his top-30 visit:
When Caleb Williams visited Chicago in early April, the Bears did something smart. Rather than have Williams go to dinner with their front office and coaches, they sent him to dinner with team leaders Cole Kmet, DJ Moore, T.J. Edwards and others. The thinking was, those are some of the team’s most respected players, the players who others listen to, and this group then would be able to tell the other players what they were getting in Williams, who is likely to be the No. 1 overall pick.
Not only does it sound like he left an “excellent impression” during his meeting with the team, but it feels notable now (just as it did earlier in April when details of his time with the team began emerging) to read about Williams dining with his future teammates. This might look like a footnote in the grand scheme of things, but I just don’t see it that way.
What to take away from Caleb Williams getting an early visit with future Bears teammates
Having Caleb Williams chop it up with DJ Moore, Cole Kmet, and T.J. Edwards is pretty heady on the Bears’ part.
Moore was voted a team captain in his first season with the Bears. Earning team captainship before your first regular-season game with a team is the kind of thing that helps paint a picture of how your teammates feel about you. Kmet has had honorary captain status in games in each of the last two seasons. I figured the Bears thought highly of Kmet when they signed him to an extension last summer. Money talks, am I right? But they also clearly view him as a locker room leader and someone they want Williams to mesh with from the get-go. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have had him in the mix at dinner.
For me, the most interesting dinner invite went to T.J. Edwards, who isn’t a captain but has some of the most unique perspectives of anyone on the Bears’ roster. Edwards knows the lay of the land in Chicago both as a player (having completed his first year with the team) and as a fan (growing up in the Chicagoland suburbs). Plus, Edwards has playoff experience having appeared in 5 games (4 starts) during three postseason trips while with the Philadelphia Eagles. In other words, everyone at the Caleb Williams dinner has a story to tell that could help bridge the gap between the rookie and the team’s vets. At a minimum, I’d bet the dinner conversation was elite.
Now, I’m not trying to read too much into who was or wasn’t at the Bears dinner with Caleb Williams. However, I feel as if you can surmise from the names emerging via reporting done on th matter that the players who are being name-checked are ones the team thinks best represents the franchise. And while I think we already knew they thought highly of players such as Cole Kmet and D.J. Moore, seeing that T.J. Edwards and Tyrique Stevenson were also part of the dinner speaks volumes about what the Bears think about those guys. Just something to keep in mind.
In the end, all of this serves as a reminder that there is so much more to being a quarterback than throwing touchdown passes. The best quarterbacks can successfully reach across the aisle and connect with players on the other side of the ball. I imagine the Bears brass thinking this is the kind of thing that could help Caleb Williams successfully immerse himself and get the ball rolling on becoming the leader the franchise needs. Chicago’s football team thinks it has its guy for the long haul. And if it does, we’ll likely look back at the humble beginnings of a dinner that took place during the spring of 2024.
