NEWSLETTER
It might be a little early for Chicago Bears scouts to be zeroing in on specific targets in the 2024 NFL Draft, but it is never too early to speculate which players this front office might have eyes for down the line. Especially when the best quarterback prospect in college football is involved.
Surely, Bears fans will have sensible reactions to this exchange on Twitter:
Bears have eyes on Caleb Williams, USC-Colorado
That’s right. The Chicago Bears have scouts watching the highly anticipated Pac-12 showdown between USC and Colorado. Giggity!
It is a game features college football’s top QB prospect and his USC squad coached by Lincoln Riley squaring off against a blossoming Colorado team coached by Deion Sanders (the NFL legend and Pro Football Hall of Famer). We could dig into some other notable draft prospects in this game at a later date. But let’s not kid ourselves. All eyes are on USC’s quarterback, who won the Heisman last year and has 379 passing yards and 6 touchdowns as of this post that is going up early in the fourth quarter. The Bears are playing like a team projected to be in a position to pick first in the 2024 NFL Draft. In other words, they should be watching Williams closely and taking copious notes. If they end up picking first, they’ll likely need a quarterback because the main reason will likely be that Justin Fields didn’t show enough for the Bears to keep chugging along with him as their franchise QB.
To be clear, it might not be all Fields’ fault if the Bears decide to go in a different direction next year. There is still time for the narrative to shift drastically in Fields’ favor. After all, we’ve still got 14 regular-season games to hash things out. So, technically, we can’t rule that possibility out just yet. Ultimately, here is where I land: Let’s view this news of Bears scouts having eyes on the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, his USC teammates, and some Colorado prospects as a sign that they’re doing an early bit of due diligence. We’ve seen previous Bears front offices gloss over the opportunity to turn over every stone, so I won’t take this for granted.
Of course, Chicago’s football team isn’t the only one with scouts who have eyes on this game. ESPN’s Pete Thamel reports there are 30 NFL scouts from 21 teams at the USC-Colorado matchup. And I imagine all eyes are on Southern Cal’s QB1.
