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Early returns on Caleb Williams could bring back the magic of No. 1 picks
If you listened to draft experts over the past few years, then you may have assumed that this moment was inevitable: Caleb Williams is playing at a high level early in his career and has led his team to three straight wins. And not just any team, but the Chicago Bears, a franchise that has never had a 4,000-yard passer, a 30-touchdown season, or a real franchise quarterback.
So in that sense, Caleb Williams is doing what he’s expected to do as the first overall pick in the draft.
But in another sense, if you had listened to draft experts in the past, you might have assumed that Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields, Trey Lance, Zach Wilson, Bryce Young, and Mac Jones would have taken over the NFL long before Williams. If No. 1 overall picks consistently led their teams to the Super Bowl, we wouldn’t have such a long and consistent history of few No. 1 picks ever living up to expectations.
So if Caleb Williams can actually keep this up, he could end up having one of the best rookie seasons in the history of No. 1 overall picks.
In helping the Bears beat the Jaguars in London 35-16, Williams finished 23-of-29 for 226 yards with four touchdowns and one interception, also rushing for 56 yards. After going scoreless in his first two career games, Williams has thrown nine touchdowns in his last four games and the Bears have scored 71 points in the last two. It’s the first time Chicago has scored 35 points in back-to-back games since 2013—and those games were not even started by the same quarterback!
Josh McCown and Jay Cutler had to combine for that effort. Caleb Williams did it alone and did it in his first year after taking over an offense that could never build a successful passing offense around Fields from 2021-2023.
While the Bears are not a great passing team yet by any means, they’ve managed to improve monumentally with Williams and that’s without massive contributions by Keenan Allen or Rome Odunze yet and with Shane Waldron as a questionably talented offensive coordinator.
Per Next Gen Stats, Williams has been one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks during Chicago’s three-game winning streak: In the last three weeks, Williams ranks fourth in EPA per dropback (+0.34 estimated points added per dropback), fourth in completion percentage over expectation (+6.8% CPOE), and is fifth in success rate (54.7%).
What does that mean?
Well, a +6.8% CPOE would be first in the entire NFL right now for the season if Williams stayed at that level. Fellow rookie Jayden Daniels leads the league at +6.4%.
Same goes for +0.34 EPA/db, which would best Daniels’ leading +0.29. Williams ranked second in the NFL in EPA/db in Week 5, behind only Joe Burrow, and was third in EPA/db in Week 6, behind only Jared Goff and Jordan Love.
In Week 6, Williams was also elite at “quick passes” by completing 13 of 14 with three touchdowns and nine first downs on throws under 2.5 seconds.
He seems to just understand how to play quarterback better than any quarterback the Chicago Bears have had since…
Well, he might just be the best quarterback in the history of the Bears already.
He’s definitely one of the best in the NFL over the past three weeks. If he can continue to improve and lead the Bears to the playoffs in Year 1, Caleb Williams (along with Jayden Daniels) might even be able to change how we view what draft experts tell us to expect from future No. 1 picks.
