It's safe to say that the Chicago Bears, for the second consecutive year, are one of the most interesting teams to keep an eye on in the NFL's offseason. Once again, the Bears enter the offseason with boatloads of cap space, the number one pick in the draft, and a looming decision about the status of Justin Fields as the franchise's starting quarterback. Unlike last year, the Bears are also bringing in a new offensive staff after repeated failures of former offensive coordinator Luke Getsy and the previous regime.

As more and more time goes by, it seems as if Chicago won't be making the decision to trade the #1 pick in the NFL Draft like they did last year, even though the haul they could likely get for the pick this year would be even greater than what general manager Ryan Poles managed to swindle the Carolina Panthers for last year. With a generational quarterback prospect like Caleb Williams sitting there as the presumptive first overall pick — and Justin Fields potentially being able to net the Bears a 1st round pick if they decided to trade him — it seems like the decision has been made for Poles already. And now, with the hiring of Shane Waldron as the Bears next offensive coordinator, the decision to take Williams with the top pick looks more clear now than it ever has.

“Caleb Williams is working with @QBCollective for training. New Bears OC Shane Waldron is a QB Collective guy. You do the math here,” tweets Hayden Winks of Underdog Fantasy.

QB Collective is an invitational training program for quarterbacks run by NFL coaches, such as Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan, Kevin Stefanski, Mike McDaniel, and yes, Shane Waldron, among many other head coaches, offensive coordinators and assistants. While all signs point to this connection likely meaning something, there's also this to consider:

That's a photo from March 2021 of 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan working with a group of quarterbacks at QB Collective, and one of the quarterbacks in that group is Justin Fields. So yeah, there's a QB collective connection with Fields here too. And then there's also this:

The scheme/philosophy that Shane Waldron will bring to Chicago is not all that different than what Justin Fields has been running each of the last two years as the starting quarterback under Luke Getsy — Getsy was the passing game coordinator under Matt LaFleur in Green Bay, LaFleur was on the same staff in Washington with Sean McVay, Waldron was the passing game coordinator under McVay in Los Angeles before serving as the offensive coordinator in Seattle the last three seasons. In Waldron's three seasons as a play-caller, he has proven to be miles ahead of Getsy, but again, the concepts are indeed similar.

Could the Waldron hiring mean that Ryan Poles and Matt Eberflus simply want to ensure that Fields doesn't need to learn yet another offensive system? Perhaps. But as I said before, all signs right now point to Caleb Williams ending up Fields' successor in Chicago, and the Waldron hiring only adds fuel to that fire.