Caleb Williams is going to be selected first overall during the NFL Draft on Thursday night. There is no debate at this point in the process. It is decided.
Williams will be the starting quarterback for the Chicago Bears next season and his anger toward Spencer Rattler explains why the organization did not leave room for an open competition.
And in his eyes, that is how it should be. The former USC and Oklahoma signal-caller fully believes that he is the best quarterback player in this NFL Draft class from top to bottom. His Heisman Trophy backs up that claim, though Jayden Daniels also has one on his résumé.
That doesn’t matter. Williams is fully sure of himself and his abilities to the point that it toes the line between conviction and haughtiness.
On one end, it is a great thing that the top player in the country believes that he is the best and expects nothing short of perfection. On the other end, he needs to be prepared for extremely thick smoke if he struggles to make the transition to the next level next season, like most rookies tend to do.
Williams’ Pro Day was the perfect representation of that dichotomy.
Caleb Williams believes he is the best!
Unlike many of his quarterback counterparts, his script was pretty basic. There wasn’t a lot of flash and the majority of his throws were standard dropbacks. Williams scaled things way down and delivered. It was a statement to the people who doubt his ability to make throws that aren’t wild highlights.
He recently spoke about the thought process behind his Pro Day during an appearance on The Pivot Podcast. Williams said that it was, in part, his “trolling, smart ass” self.
The point of his Pro Day was to show that his highlight plays are only a part of his game. Williams is confident — and has a screenshot of the numbers to back it up — that he is the best and most accurate quarterback in this year’s class by a large margin.
If you look at the stats, I am the most dead center. It’s just, I make more highlights, and that’s what they show.
— Caleb Williams on The Pivot Podcast
He continued on to explain that nobody else can do the things that he does on the field. Not Daniels, not Drake Maye, not J.J. McCarthy. Nobody.
I am the farthest from all of them, in every single way. I can do anything and everything I want.
— Caleb Williams on The Pivot Podcast
Williams’ full answer was a perfect reflection of how his confidence borders closely with arrogance.
If you are the Chicago Bears, this is exactly how you want your franchise quarterback to talk and think about himself. Now he needs to back up his bold-faced trash talk when he gets to the league.