Caleb Williams heard the jokes about his toughness after he was carted off the field in Week 2 with an injury that would keep him out for three games. That was clear last week when the Bears quarterback laid out his complaints about the reporting surrounding his hamstring injury.
It was also an insight into what slights — real or perceived — fueled him during three weeks of rehab.
“A little bit, a little bit,” he said Tuesday after the team’s walk-through. “I think that’s more of the added motivation. The motivation is just being able to try to get back out there with my guys, us losing the week before, all of those things.
“And then being able to have people question me and my character and a bunch of different things, how I went about my injury. I think that was just a little added [motivation].”
Williams’ rant on Thursday provided material for national talking-head morning shows on television — and popular corners of the internet — Friday morning and all through the weekend. Williams undoubtedly was aware of that, though he claimed Tuesday that he “didn’t really see the reaction” from national outlets.
“I mean, everything I say, somebody’s gonna say something — national or anything like that,” he said. “So didn’t see it. I’m gonna always be myself. I’m gonna speak when I feel I need to speak up — and that was just one of those moments.”
The issue, of course, is what Williams didn’t say in that moment. In a four-minute opening statement, Williams said that “every single” report about the severity of his hamstring injury was wrong. When he was asked to clarify the details of his hamstring injury, he refused, saying the media was “not deserving” of the right answer. That was where Williams’ airing of grievances started to feel petty.
If he keeps playing well, though, few will care. Williams wasn’t the first Bears quarterback to complain in front of a microphone, of course. The difference is that he has a chance to become known for something more than that.
If Williams keeps playing the way he did in Sunday’s win against the Falcons, when he posted a 111.2 passer rating, he’ll build up equity his predecessors never had.
In my 14 seasons covering the Bears, I've learned that, when it comes to quarterbacks, fan patience is usually just as long as their leash on the field.
Jay Cutler, after all, might have been the original NFL meme: an eye-rolling, smirking caricature that cried out for the Internet — remember Tumblr? — to put a fake cigarette in his mouth and complete the look of ennui.
On the field, Cutler was perfectly average. He won 51 regular season games with the Bears — and lost 51. In a Bears career that ran from 2009-16, he won one playoff game — and lost another. In the loss, Cutler’s toughness was questioned just the way Williams’ was. He was diagnosed with a sprained knee — the Sun-Times called it a Grade 2 — and was criticized even by Mike Ditka afterwards.
Mitch Trubisky had his own issue with talking heads. In 2019, he said that he wanted the televisions turned off inside Halas Hall “because you've got too many people talking on TV about us and what they think about us — what we should do, what we are and what we're not.” The Bears went 5-3 the rest of the year and decided not to exercise Trubisky’s fifth-year option. They went 8-8 the following season before Trubisky left via free agency to become a Bills backup.
In September 2023, Justin Fields said he wanted to play “less robotic” and stop over-thinking. Asked why he was over-thinking things, he said it “could be coaching,” adding that “when you’re fed a lot of information at a point in time and you’re trying to think about that info when you’re playing, it doesn’t let you play like yourself." After Fields’ comments blew up over the next few hours, Fields pulled reporters to his locker after practice and claimed he was “never going to blame anything on the coaches.”
Fields finished the season 5-8 — and his Bears career 10-28 — before being traded the following offseason so the Bears could make room for Williams. Bears fans are thrilled with that development. Williams struggled mightily in the rainy loss to the blitz-happy Vikings. But in the two full games he’s played this season, Williams has looked as good as he has at any point in his Bears career.
Williams' perceived slights helped him return Sunday — and play well. So did the awareness of his own limitations. When he stayed in a clean pocket rather than take off to run, Williams went 24-for-24 for 248 yards, per NFL Next Gen Stats, the most any NFL quarterback had completed without a misfire in at least eight years.
Williams, who was challenged by coach Ben Johnson to complete 70% of his passes, leads all passers with at least 50 throws with a completion percentage of 72.5%.
That, he said, can carry over Thursday against the Patriots.
So will the extra motivation Williams took from his time off.
