Will the Chicago Bears select a quarterback with the 1st overall pick in the NFL Draft if they are presented the opportunity to do so next April?
This is the question I've been asking myself for months now. It's been the main topic of conversation between my father and I since early October. And it's a conundrum that all other fans of the Chicago Bears are pondering too, especially as the Carolina Panthers continue to plummet toward that #1 pick that the Bears will own. But let's be real here for a second… grappling with the unknown of who our starting quarterback will be, how reliable he'll be on a game to game basis, and how long he'll actually remain in Chicago is an essential part of the existential dread that comes with being a fan of this team.
There have been times in the last few months where I'm sure my girlfriend and I have resembled the meme of the couple in bed, where the lady asks “I wonder what he's thinking about” and I'm just laying there weighing the decision of Justin Fields vs. Caleb Williams, wondering how it'll effect the next two decades of my life. And think, I don't even have a say in the decision. That'll come down to the folks who are running the Chicago Bears: Ryan Poles, the McCaskey family, Kevin Warren, and whoever the hell our next head coach is going to be once Matt Eberflus is symbolically tossed into the Chicago River.
We've arrived at the point where scouts seem sold on Williams being the guy and Fields being expendable, and I imagine that sentiment will only grow as the rest of the season plays out and we inch closer toward the NFL Draft. Unless Fields plays out of his mind down the stretch, my gut tells me that if Ryan Poles were presented with the opportunity to select Caleb Williams with the 1st overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, he would probably do it.
“A lot of the things they're asking Fields to do, Caleb does better,” an NFC national scout shared with Courtney Cronin of ESPN. “This guy thrives on his ability to improv, create on his own and turn a dead play into a highlight.”
Yeah, that's a completely fair, spot-on assessment of Caleb Williams as a prospect. We saw him make these off-schedule throws and plays with his legs countless times at USC, but let's not forget, this was one of the perks of drafting Fields in 2021. His ability to turn something out of nothing and create with his legs was one of the things scouts loved about him at Ohio State, and it's been these dead plays where Fields has made something out of nothing that have been responsible for Bears fans continuing to believe that JF1 could be our QB1 for the next decade. But it doesn't feel an accurate assessment of Fields to say that this is what the Bears have asked him to do. If anything, under Eberflus and offensive coordinator Luke Getsy, Fields has become more robotic than he was at Ohio State, which is why if the coaching staff remains the same, I have very little faith that Caleb Williams will be the Bears savior if Ryan Poles were to draft him and move on from Fields.
Another wrinkle to consider in all of this is how drafting Caleb Williams would allow the Bears to reset their timeline. “The Bears have an estimated $82.4 million in salary cap space for 2024. That capital will be spent on premium positions to continue building the roster. Unless the Bears are certain Fields is their long-term answer, tying up resources in the 24-year-old might not be their best financial option,” Cronin states in her story. She went on to speak with ESPN front office insider Mike Tannenbaum about this very dilemma.
“Justin Fields is going to have to play out of his mind, because if it's close, the economics are so compelling to take another quarterback to reset the clock. If you could reset the clock on a rookie quarterback alone, Justin Fields would have to be two to three times the player to not take a quarterback because you have to think about all those other players you can add with the savings.”
Look, I get this, and it's an intriguing thought to think about a rookie QB as talented as Caleb Williams with a more complete Bears roster, but a couple of weeks ago I said I would ride with Justin Fields as the Bears QB1 until the wheels came off, and I stand by it. Tonight, when the Bears play on Monday Night Football in Minnesota, I'll be hoping that Fields leaves no doubt that he's the guy in Chicago. I won't waiver until the time comes that the Bears actually do select Caleb Williams, and then I'll have the same faith in Williams until the Bears inevitably chew him up and spit him out.
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