{"id":52905,"date":"2025-05-15T19:51:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T19:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/52905\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T19:51:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T19:51:10","slug":"caleb-williams-almost-nuked-chicago-bears-from-taking-him-in-2024-nfl-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/52905\/","title":{"rendered":"Caleb Williams almost ‘nuked’ Chicago Bears from taking him in 2024 NFL draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams <\/a>may sound like he enjoys playing for his current team, but excerpts from an upcoming book reveal he tried to avoid becoming the top pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n

In his soon-to-be-released book \u201cAmerican Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback,\u201d ESPN reporter Seth Wickersham<\/a> shared details of how Williams, with help from his father Carl, sought to avoid playing for the Bears and potentially join the Minnesota Vikings, the Bears\u2019 NFC North rivals.<\/p>\n

Carl told agents he didn\u2019t want his son playing for the Bears and even met with Archie Manning<\/a>, who helped his son Eli<\/a> avoid playing for then-San Diego Chargers, which led to Eli being traded to the Giants<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wickersham said the Williams family considered playing in the United Football League<\/a> for a season to become an unrestricted free agent in 2025 but decided against it. Williams eventually changed his mind after the Bears told him they wouldn\u2019t trade him to the Vikings or any other team. Not wanting to start his career on the wrong foot publicly, Williams had a pre-draft meeting with the Bears that made him feel more comfortable about the situation, and the Bears made him the No. 1 pick.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t ready to nuke the city,\u201d Williams told Wickersham.<\/p>\n

Although Williams finished last season completing 62.5% of his passes (351 of 562) for 3,541 yards, 20 touchdowns and six interceptions, his numbers could have been better. Williams\u2019 initial reservations about joining the Bears appeared justified due to development issues under head coach Matt Eberflus<\/a> and offensive coordinator Shane Waldron. Both were fired and replaced this offseason by former Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt times, Williams said he would watch film alone, with no instruction or guidance from the coaches,\u201d Wickersham wrote. \u201c\u2018No one tells me what to watch,\u2019 Caleb Williams told his dad. \u2018I just turn it on.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting us with a subscription.<\/p>\n

Chris Franklin may be reached at cfranklin@njadvancemedia.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams may sound like he enjoys playing for his current team, but excerpts from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,6,15,10661],"class_list":{"0":"post-52905","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-draft","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-nfl","10":"tag-nfl-draft","11":"tag-soldier-field"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114513594506104968","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}