{"id":53145,"date":"2025-05-15T21:59:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T21:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/53145\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T21:59:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T21:59:10","slug":"caleb-williams-family-went-to-great-lengths-to-stop-qb-from-getting-drafted-by-bears-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/53145\/","title":{"rendered":"Caleb Williams\u2019 family went to \u2018great lengths\u2019 to stop QB from getting drafted by Bears (report)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Caleb Williams\u2019 family so badly didn\u2019t want him to be drafted by the Chicago Bears that he and his family \u201cweighed circumventing the entire NFL draft,\u201d according to a new book from ESPN\u2019s Seth Wickersham<\/a> that\u2019s set to publish in September. <\/p>\n

Carl Williams, the father of the Bears quarterback, opened up to Wickersham<\/a> about his son\u2019s lack on interest in Chicago, admitting he went to \u201cgreat lengths\u201d to try to make sure that didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cChicago is the place quarterbacks go to die,\u201d Carl said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The family even consulted lawyers to try and figure out if it were possible to get around the NFL\u2019s collective bargaining agreement. Williams even considered signing with the United Football League.<\/p>\n

Carl\u2019s concern for his son \u2014 according to Wickersham \u2014 came from the Bears failing to draft a star quarterback since the 1980s. Recent draftees Mitchell Trubisky and Justin Fields \u2014 who both had high expectations \u2014 didn\u2019t work out in Chicago.<\/p>\n

Wickersham noted in his book that his family thought they might be able to force a trade if they publicly attacked the team and the city of Chicago, but Williams told Wickersham \u201cwasn\u2019t ready to nuke the city<\/a>\u201d if the Bears refused to trade him.<\/p>\n

But after a pre-draft visit to the Bears facility, Williams was confident it was the right team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can do it for this team,\u201d Williams told his dad, per Wickersham<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m going to go to the Bears.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bears drafted Williams No. 1 overall in the 2024 NFL Draft. The quarterback threw for 3,541 yards with 20 touchdowns during Chicago\u2019s 5-12 season. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Caleb Williams\u2019 family so badly didn\u2019t want him to be drafted by the Chicago Bears that he and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,5648,6,15,3846],"class_list":{"0":"post-53145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-draft","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-isolated","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-nfl-draft","12":"tag-nflraw24"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114514097935803791","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53145","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=53145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}