There are Caleb Williams rumors swirling that the USC quarterback and presumptive top pick in the 2024 NFL Draft does not want to play for the team drafting first, the Chicago Bears. However, as the NFL combine starts in earnest, Bears general manager Ryan Poles says he’s not worried about that narrative.

“Bears GM Ryan Poles said he has no concerns of Caleb Williams potentially not wanting to play in Chicago,” The 33rd Team’s Ari Meirov reported on Tuesday.

Despite the rumors that Williams may not want to go to Chicago — a cold-weather city with a terrible quarterback history and just six winning seasons this century — his camp has firmly denied this through the NFL draft process.

“I got a call from the Caleb Williams camp,” Colin Cowherd told his listeners back in early February. “And they went, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Colin, we don't want to be painted as anti-Chicago, and we don’t want to be painted as anti-Bear.”

So, if Willaims’ “camp” is calling talk show hosts and saying that, they are surely saying it to Ryan Poles as well, which is likely why he’s not worried about getting shunned by the Trojans QB.

If for some reason the rumors are true, though, and Williams really doesn’t want to play for the Bears or in Chicago for whatever reason, he wouldn’t be the first presumptive No. 1 overall pick to shun the team at the top of the NFL draft.

The two most famous (or infamous depending on who you root for) cases of this came in 1983 and 2004. In the former, Stanford QB John Elway refused to play for the Baltimore Colts, while during the latter saga, Ole Miss’ Eli Manning made it clear he did not want to go to the San Diego Chargers.