An ESPN reporter’s book, coming this fall, alleges Carl and Caleb Williams looked into avoid being drafted by the Chicago Bears.
In retrospect, it’s not surprising to learn Caleb Williams and his father, Carl, didn’t want to be drafted by the Chicago Bears.
Of course, none of us knew how bad it would end up being.
Rumors were abound throughout the draft process following the 2023 NFL season, saying Caleb Williams, or more accurately, his father Carl, wanted to drive where Caleb would play. Reports he would “pull an Eli Manning” also surfaced at one point. The “diva” label got thrust onto Caleb and other rumors said he and his dad were demanding ownership stakes in the team that selected him.
Now, a forthcoming book from ESPN’s Seth Wickersham goes into depth on how real those rumors were. And it appears there was truth to some of them.
According to Wickersham, after Carl exhausted legal opinions, even exploring Caleb signing with the UFL for a year so he could reach free agency with the NFL, it was decided Caleb would go to the Bears.
Carl Williams went to great lengths to try to circumvent the NFL draft, Wickersham writes, wanting to give his son an opportunity to choose his future employer.
Looking for a way around the league’s collective bargaining agreement, Carl Williams spoke with Archie Manning, who helped Eli Manning assert a measure of control over his eventual team in 2004. He also met with labor lawyers and agents — and even considered whether his son could sign with the United Football League and become an unrestricted NFL free agent in 2025 to be able to pick a team. In addition to the draft process, Carl Williams vented about the rookie wage scale, which could lock his son into the team that drafted him for up to eight years. He calculated hundreds of millions of lost market-value income.
It’s important to note that much of this work was done before Williams had visited Halas Hall.
After a predraft visit to the Bears facility, Williams believed he could be part of a process to turn the franchise around.
“I can do it for this team,” Caleb told his dad. “I’m going to go to the Bears.”
But it does show the Bears had to sell their vision and organization to Williams and his group, something that was floated out there at the time. None of this is that surprising with that context.
Caleb ultimately decided torching the city and organizations was a bridge too far. Caleb and/or his dad decided that going the route of Jack and John Elway was too much.
“He’s worried about me taking bullets,” Carl Williams told Wickersham of his son. “I don’t care. I just don’t agree with this s—, you know? I’m more interested in making sure that he can do what he wants to do.”
But Caleb was concerned that if they did try and the Bears refused to trade him, it would make a tough situation worse. In the end, Caleb Williams told Wickersham, “I wasn’t ready to nuke the city.”
The elder Williams and perhaps Caleb preferred going to the Minnesota Vikings, the book says. And Williams was unsure of working with Waldron early on.
“Chicago is the place quarterbacks go to die,” Carl Williams, Caleb’s father, told Seth Wickersham, author of “American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback,” in the months before the 2024 draft.
Caleb Williams wondered aloud to confidants: “Do I want to go there? I don’t think I can do it with [former Bears offensive coordinator Shane] Waldron.”
And good for Poles to shut it down.
Bears GM Ryan Poles stood firm, telling Williams, “We’re drafting you no matter what.”
There is more, too. Wickersham followed Caleb’s rookie year, showing the utter lack of coaching that Matt Eberflus and Shane Waldron allegedly offered.
The book also sheds light on Williams’ tumultuous rookie season, in which both Eberflus and Waldon were fired and the Bears lost 10 straight games.
At times, Williams said he would watch film alone, with no instruction or guidance from the coaches. “No one tells me what to watch,” Caleb Williams told his dad. “I just turn it on.”
Now, I use the word “allege” a lot here because if you read the article, it appears that very little of this was directly said by Caleb to Wickersham, it mostly sounds like Wickersham spoke to Carl.
All of the direct quotes in the article come from Carl and the ones attributed to Caleb are all quoted as “Caleb told his father” or “Caleb said to confidants.”
Standing here in May of 2025 we can all hope it’s working out. Caleb rewrote the Bears’ rookie passing records and is now paired with a coach and staff truly built to make him play his best.
Everyone but (apparently?) the decision-makers inside of Halas Hall could see that Matt Eberflus was a bad coach and the weak link in the process of drafting Caleb.
The whole article is worth a read because the book isn’t just about Williams, but about the quarterback position at multiple levels, looking at the recruiting of Arch Manning, LSU QB Colin Hurley’s injury recovery and talks with legends like John Elway, the Mannings and Warren Moon, among others.
This is certainly going to generate a lot of talk and hype for the book, which is what publicists want for this type of project, but it’s going to drive book sales.
What do you make of these stories? Ancient history or concern about the future of the Caleb-Bears relationship?