The Chicago Bears may have finally found their franchise quarterback, but Caleb Williams has to prove it first. The 2024 first-overall draft can look at Houston Texans quarterback CJ Stroud's 2023 campaign as a blueprint for his rookie year in the NFL.
The two promising talents are already being compared, via ESPN's Stephen A. Smith.
“Is it wrong for me to say I saw CJ Stroud do that last year in Houston, I think this brother could do that here this year,” Smith asked. “Am I wrong for saying that?”
“No,” Williams said.
Stroud, of course, was the Offensive Rookie of the Year last season. The Ohio State alum tossed 4,108 yards with 23 touchdowns and five picks in 15 games on 63.9% passing, with 167 rushing yards and three scores on the ground.
“It was exciting,” Williams continued. “It's never happened obviously, to have someone come in like that and have an explosive offense the way they did. We got guys to do it, so just preparing for those times, that moment.”
Will Williams have a similar fate in the Windy City?
Caleb Williams has the talent to take the Bears to the promised land
Williams' skills are undeniable, as the 2022 Heisman winner finished with 93 touchdowns against just 14 picks while throwing for almost 10,000 yards in three college seasons. Once he learns how to read and process NFL defenses, he shouldn't have any on-field roadblocks to success.
However, not everyone thinks that Williams' personality will gel with his new teammates. Former New York Giants star Amani Toomer didn't like how the young quarterback told the squad to be neater in the locker room, via The Carton Show.
“He’s Russell Wilson 2.0. This is not gonna go over well,” Tooner said. “Some rookie’s gonna come in who hasn’t played one snap, talking, wearing the fingernail polish, now he’s gonna come in here and tell me, who has been here, been through the struggle, that I need to clean up?”
Chicago safety Kevin Byard explained Williams' locker-room neatness agenda, via 670 The Score.
“First thing he said was, ‘Hey, man, we're all grown men here, right?'” Byard said. “He was like ‘We're getting a little too sloppy. We're leaving water bottles, towels and all types of things around. Custodians have a lot of square footage that they have to cover in this whole building. Let's try to help them out by cleaning up after ourselves.' … When you want to be a great player, you always focus on the little details—not even just the details of the play, but the details of everything around you.”
Theoretically, keeping a neat and organized locker room wouldn't be the end of the world, but not everyone wants to take orders from a newbie. If Williams hits the ground running this season, though, he'll have plenty of authority to recommend clean habits.
With Keenan Allen, DJ Moore, D'Andre Swift, Cole Kmet, and fellow rookie Rome Odunze at the 22-year-old's disposal this season, his neat freak and fingernail-painting tendencies are unlikely to get in the way of scoring touchdowns.
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