Bears QB Caleb Williams addresses
controversy from book excerpt
[May 29, 2025]
By GENE CHAMBERLAIN
LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams
sought to quiet the controversy about how he hadn’t wanted to come
to his current team prior to the 2024 draft.
Williams admitted an ESPN story about an upcoming book by Seth
Wickersham on quarterbacks was true in that he did like the idea of
going to the Minnesota Vikings initially, but this was prior to his
first visit to Chicago. Then, Williams said, he wanted to be with
the Bears.
“Yeah, I had a good visit at the other place — Minnesota, with
(coach) Kevin O’Connell,” Williams said. “Good staff and all of that
obviously. He just won the coach of the year award and things like
that. Obviously, good staff and things like that.
“But something that keeps getting lost, something that keeps
getting, I think, not being addressed the way it needs to be is the
fact that I went on that visit first, came here and then after I
came here, I went back home and talked to my dad.”
His comment to his father, Carl Williams, was he wanted to play for
the Bears and become the quarterback who leads them out of a history
of struggling quarterbacks.
“This whole storm that happened, it wasn’t something that we wanted
to have happen at this point,” Williams said during a news
conference Wednesday during the Bears OTAs. “We’re focused on the
present, we’re focused on now, we’re focused on trying to get this
ship moving in the right direction. And I think so far that’s what
we’ve been doing.
“But for this to come out it’s been a distraction.”
The book, “American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback,” looks at
many QBs but Williams’ part details how he and his father thought
about the possibility of finding a way to circumvent the NFL draft
in 2024 to avoid coming to Chicago. Williams labeled any of the
early discussion as mere thoughts, not action.
“Those are thoughts that go throughout your head in those
situations,” Williams said. “All of those are thoughts. And then
after I came on my visit here, it was a deliberate answer and
deliberate and determined answer that I had is that I wanted to come
here.”
The Bears quarterback saw most of what had been written as ancient
history, but did label one aspect of an ESPN story on the book as
false or misinterpreted. It was a claim he didn’t know how to watch
film and the Bears staff under former coach Matt Eberflus failed to
help him.
[to top of second column] |
Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams throws a ball during NFL
football practice in Lake Forest, Ill., Wednesday, May 28, 2025. (AP
Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
“So that was a funny one that came out, that in
context, in how that was trying to be portrayed, didn’t get
portrayed that way,” Williams said. “It wasn’t that I didn’t know
how to watch film, it was trying to figure on the best ways and more
efficient ways.”
Williams expects new coach Ben Johnson will make a difference in his
film watching.
“He’s been in this offense for six years,” Williams said. “He’s
really been on top of it and we’re really only trying to catch up,
I’m only trying to catch up to him and be on top of the details as
much as possible.”
Williams said his father’s input was valued and always is, but in
the case of the book he probably went too far or wasn’t entirely
clear with some comments made.
“Definitely a grown man, I shut him down quite a lot just because in
season and out of season, it’s something you have to do,” Williams
said. “He cares so much about me and my future and we have been
along this journey so long together, all he wants is the best for
me.
“So if anything happens and he’s super hot-headed and it’s more of
like ‘All right, go ahead and go away. Go reset.’ Things like that.
Love him to death and things like that, super fortunate to have him.
We have talked about it. Understanding that there’s a right place
and a right time and there are times that there is not.”
The book is scheduled to be released Sept. 9, a day after the Bears
open the season against the Vikings in a home Monday night game to
be televised by ESPN.
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