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SPOILER ALERT: Caleb Williams is going to be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft by the Chicago Bears on Thursday night.
But should he be?
One NFL head coach says that Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels, not Williams, should be the obvious pick for Chicago.
“It’s a no-brainer to me,” the anonymous coach told ESPN. “Jayden looks like the best guy in this draft.”
Daniels is widely expected to go at either No. 2 to the Washington Commanders or No. 3 to the New England Patriots or a potential trade partner.
Several NFL Coaches Like Jayden Daniels Over Caleb Williams In NFL Draft
For as crazy as it sounds, that head coach is not alone.
“If you pick Daniels, you’re getting Lamar 2.0, but he’s further along as a passer than Lamar was when he came out,” another coach said.
Neither coach is in the quarterback market, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Williams will go No. 1 to Chicago. That much seems settled. But he’s not without a litany of detractors.
“I like Caleb as a player, but the locker room part of it concerns me,” a quarterback coach recently said of the USC star. “I don’t know him from a can of paint, but what I’ve heard and what I’ve seen from watching interviews, he’s going to have to understand the difference in where he’s at and how he’s been treated to being the quarterback in an NFL locker room.
“…You can win a Heisman and do all that stuff. In the NFL, you have to know protections, and responsibilities and run game and managing the game. There’s no layups, like all the quick screens and bubble passes and all that other stuff that boosts up your completion percentages because those plays are taken away. But I would still take him high. You just have to hope that your team and staff and mentorship can support him.”
Sounds risky.
But that’s the name of the game with quarterbacks in the NFL Draft. There are no sure things. Even with Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels.