The Chicago Bears feel they have built a solid roster to compete in 2024. As with any NFL team, good play from the quarterback is necessary to make that happen. Please make no mistake: the Bears don’t expect Caleb Williams to carry the entire team on his shoulders. That is neither fair nor realistic. What they want from the #1 overall pick is efficiency. Don’t feel a need to press. Take what the defense gives you, make smart decisions, limit turnovers, and try to produce a couple of big plays every week.
Conor Orr of Sports Illustrated decided to investigate every 1st round quarterback ahead of the regular season. He assessed their talent, supporting casts, and coaching situations to develop a stat projection for each. Jayden Daniels has a decent start in Washington with over 3200 yards and 18 TDs to 10 INTs. Drake Maye and J.J. McCarthy won’t start until later in the year. Michael Penix Jr. won’t play at all. None of them are expected to post significant numbers.
Williams, on the other hand? Well, his certainly pops out.
1. Caleb Williams, Chicago Bears (No. 1 pick)
Projection: 65% completion rate, 26 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, 3,727 yards
Why: Waldron is a gifted offensive coordinator who, alongside Panthers head coach Dave Canales, led an offensive renaissance in Seattle that segmented quarterback Geno Smith’s strengths and built a playbook around his favorite throws and his strong suits. Despite Pete Carroll’s penchant for an incredibly balanced run/pass ratio, the Seahawks entrusted Waldron to unleash the team’s core of wide receivers. By Smith’s last year with Waldron, the Seahawks’ run-pass ratio was skewed beyond that of Russell Wilson during his final year with Carroll.
The baseline comp I used for this was Jared Goff’s sophomore season. These numbers are mostly in line with Goff’s first season with Sean McVay.
If Caleb Williams does that, it would be historic.
Maybe not in broader NFL terms, but easily in Bears terms. Here is a reminder. Erik Kramer holds the franchise record for single-season passing with 3,838 yards and 29 touchdowns. Orr believes Williams will threaten both marks as a rookie. Better still, a Bears QB has cracked 3700 yards passing twice in franchise history. Kramer in 1995 and Jay Cutler in 2014. Williams would be the third. It would also be only the fifth time someone would’ve thrown at least 26 touchdowns. Orr might think these numbers are decent, but in the context of this organization, they would be eye-popping.
Buzz is already building at Halas Hall. Caleb Williams already looks like he belongs. He seems to handle it fine where quarterbacks would usually struggle against the Bears defense. The offense is holding its own in drills, executing quality drives, and limiting their mistakes. High-level execution isn’t there yet. Still, for Williams to make strong throws in the face of the starting defense every day is encouraging. Maybe Orr isn’t too crazy to think those numbers are attainable.
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@BearDownTX But I don’t think a “fine” season is what we’re expecting from Caleb. He’s been sold to us fans as generational, as the singular solution to the team’s historic struggles on offense. We can get a “fine” season from a “fine” QB1. But this year’s top draft pick was the most valuable one in league history, and if what it returns is “fine,” then I don’t think that’s good enough. But the Mahomes comp is a thing worth talking about. My view is that Mahomes is a system quarterback, and that his success is in large part attributable to… Read more »
@barry_mccockiner—I will bet every dollar I have, and even borrow some, that Caleb will outperform JF this year and produce better quarterback stats JF has ever produced. If you want your quarterback to be a RB, just make him a RB.
And honestly, if Caleb hits those numbers, it would be a fine season for a rookie QB. For some perspective on what you call modest stats, Mahomes, the best QB in the NFL, threw for only 400 more yards, 1 more TD, and 2 more INT than Caleb’s prediction.
Get ready to smash that downvote button for your guy Barry’s next take….. If the SI projection is right, then Caleb will need to rush for an additional 20 yards per game to merely meet Justin Fields’ per-game yardage output from last year, when Chicago’s offense was eons behind where it is now from a personnel standpoint and when it was hamstrung by the most astonishingly awful offensive coordinator in modern league history. I personally do not care what the production stats are as long as solid QB play is leading to wins. But for those of you who do… Read more »
@Sam One of the best QB performances I’ve seen over the past few years was Josh Allen leading the Bills to an upset of Dallas last year, a game in which he threw for less than 100 yards. The point being that I, myself, think that net passing yardage from a QB1 is an absolutely meaningless metric when it’s devoid of all other context. Before the draft, the consensus on here was to pick Caleb because he’ll throw for more than 300 yards per game consistently. I’m just pointing out that, despite the scorching hot headline in this article, the… Read more »
9 QBs played 17 games last year