On Wednesday, Chicago Bears coaches had Caleb Williams sipping Lou Anarumo information from a firehose. The Cincinnati Bengals’ defensive coordinator is known for throwing a lot at a quarterback, both in his defensive structures and his blitz packages. And with Anarumo and a proud, veteran group coming to town for a joint practice Thursday, OC Shane Waldron and the staff needed to give their rookie starter a primer just to get the most out of the session.
Williams left work that night at a point where, in the words of one coach, he “kind of got it.”
Upon returning Thursday for morning meetings, somehow, he had it down cold.
That Williams is already guy might be surprising to some. But keep asking around with the Bears’ coaches, front office people, staffers and anyone else working here, and you’ll quickly see it shouldn’t be.
Really, it’s this simple: Williams isn’t who you think. You see the Oklahoma star gone Hollywood Heisman, with painted fingernails and a daredevil style. They see the guy who’ll do anything for a teammate, who treats people down the org chart the same way he might coach Matt Eberflus, and is as into the minutiae of football as he is the highlight plays he’s known for. You may see how he practiced on Thursday. They know how he prepared to do it.
Even more interesting, Williams seems to have no interest in correcting those narratives that have followed him, and how they have grown as the spotlight has intensified—and he’s gone from top-rated college recruit, to true freshman starter at Oklahoma, to USC matinee idol, to, now, a flagship NFL franchise’s next designated savior.
“I know who I am,” Williams says, in a quiet moment in the Bears’ facility, after a scorching hot August camp practice. “I know what I like. I know what I like to do. I know where I like to go. I think that’s the first part—knowing who I am. The second part would be, I learned at a young age, I can’t make everybody happy.
But he also knows that, in the years to come, he’ll have a chance to make a lot of people happy in America’s third-largest city. He’s aware that there’s truly only one way to make that happen. As his work overnight on Wednesday would indicate, he has a pretty good idea of to make it happen, too.
And if those on the outside don’t care to see that, that’s fine.
Williams shrugs. They can think what they want to think.
