Caleb Williams is going to be the starting quarterback for the Chicago Bears after being selected first overall in the NFL Draft. General manager Ryan Poles did not leave any room for competition.
That might have been was intentional.
There was a lot of conversation about what the Bears would do with the No. 1 pick after last season came to an end. Justin Fields was still on the roster and showed flashes of his potential down the stretch. Marvin Harrison Jr. was/is considered a can’t-miss wide receiver. Chicago might have decided to get its quarterback a weapon instead of taking another quarterback.
And then, once it became clear that Williams is the pick, there was a lot of conversation about the battle that was set to unfold between he and Fields. How were the Bears going to handle a quarterback competition between the two?
Well, they aren’t.
Poles made a statement and shipped Fields off to Pittsburgh. Williams is going to start as a rookie.
The decision to get rid of the competition prior to the Draft was an intentional assertion. Chicago made it clear that the entire organization is behind the soon-to-be top pick. Anyone who was not on board before has to be on board now. Even the fans who wanted Fields over Williams have no choice but to support the latter.
This particular sequence of events is especially interesting after hearing the former USC and Oklahoma signal-caller’s thoughts about his brief stint in Norman.
Caleb Williams believes he is the best.
Williams, a five-star recruit in the Class of 2021, committed to play for Lincoln Riley at Oklahoma over 21 other offers. Spencer Rattler, a five-star recruit in the Class of 2019, was already on the roster. There was a lot of buzz about his future. He was considered to be a lock for the top-five of the upcoming NFL Draft.
It didn’t matter. Williams committed to the Sooners and expected to beat out Rattler for the starting job.
That is not what happened. At first, at least.
Rattler was named the starter out of fall camp and served in that role for the first six games despite some early struggles. Riley ultimately benched him for Williams just before halftime of the Red River Shootout.
Oklahoma was down 35-17 to Texas. The Sooners went on to win 55-48.
The rest is history.
Williams never gave back the starting job and later transferred to Southern California. Rattler never regained his role as QB1 and later transferred to South Carolina.
The entire landscape of college football changed forever when Riley went to the bench on Oct. 9, 2021. The butterfly effect from that move is pretty crazy when you really break it down.
Every moment leading up to that quarterback switch was frustrating for Williams. He recently discussed the dynamic of his time at Oklahoma on The Pivot Podcast and how it specifically changed his life— in addition to the sport as a whole.
Williams thought that he beat Rattler out in the spring. He was very confident that he was the best quarterback on the roster and in the country in the country, so for Riley to start the latter over the former was infuriating. His anger only intensified when the head coach would not give him the opportunity to rep with the 1s in practice and only told him to “keep going.”
It certainly didn’t help that Rattler and Williams did not have a great rapport.
Credit where credit is due to Ryan Clark for pushing back on Caleb Williams. The math wasn’t quite adding up and he made him finish the equation.
This specific portion of the 76-minute conversation helps to provide some clarity on why Poles decided to send Fields to Pittsburgh for a conditional day-three NFL Draft pick. It was never about the return. It was about the message that the trade sent to the newcomer.
To draft Williams with Fields still on the roster would have been the same as when Williams arrived to Norman with Rattler. Poles preemptively avoided a similar situation to what his soon-to-be franchise quarterback spoke about on the Pivot Podcast. Chicago is not Oklahoma 2.0. Fields is not Rattler.