A quote from Ryan Poles caused quite a stir on Monday.
Let’s start here: No.
Now, let’s begin the article.
On Monday, The Athletic’s Minnesota Vikings reporter, Alec Lewis, posted a story about JJ McCarthy as the former first-round QB is ready to take over the reins of the Vikings’ offense.
In the body of the article, Lewis used a quote from quarterback coach Greg Holcomb. Holcomb said he had a conversation with Ryan Poles during the offseason. This is from Lewis’ article: “He (Poles) was talking about how much they (the Bears) loved J.J. and said to me, ‘I don’t think people realize how close we were to possibly taking him.’ Obviously, they love Caleb, but I thought that was interesting.”
That quote is one that moved quickly around Chicago Bears circles, so let’s dive into it.
What’s the truth behind the quote?
Here’s how I understand the Bears’ offseason went leading into the 2024 NFL Draft.
The Bears had made the evaluation on Justin Fields, and by December, the front office was pretty confident they would be using one of their first-round picks on a quarterback. The front office had been doing work on QBs throughout the college football season, but really ramped it up later in 2023.
With the Carolina Panthers pick in tow, it was clear the Bears were going to have a top-five pick by November, but they didn’t know just how good it would be. Once the Panthers were locked into the top spot with a couple of weeks to go in the season, the question wasn’t which quarterback they would take; it was ‘Will we take Caleb Williams?’
The scouting department, based on Williams’ on-field performance, had him as QB1. But, as we remember, the character concerns were burning like wildfire on social media.
Not only were those questions circulating on social media, but they were also being discussed within football circles. Not only were there concerns about Williams as a teammate and if he was a diva, but there were also concerns about his father, Carl Williams, and that he may be a helicopter parent, and that would be an issue for the franchise to deal with as well.
The Bears’ scouting department and front office began investigating those character concerns, but simultaneously, they also needed to research the other QBs. They needed to know that if they decided that Caleb Williams wasn’t a fit for the Chicago Bears, what direction they would pivot.
Ultimately, the Bears had JJ McCarthy as their QB2. Would the Bears have drafted him first overall?
No.
Had the Caleb Williams plan gone south, the Bears would have traded down with a team that wanted to come up for Williams, and the Bears would have drafted JJ McCarthy, who would have become their QB1 after they examined his on-field performance, as well as his off-field intangibles.
But as the Bears researched Williams, they learned that a lot of the character concerns were not grounded in truth; they were what many thought they were: rumors. They spoke with Williams’ former coaches, they spoke with his teammates, they had multiple dinners with him with his current teammates and potential future teammates with the Bears to see how he interacted with them. They examined Williams from all angles, and after all that work, they were comfortable that Williams was the right pick for the team.
That decision came down in late March. The Bears were confident that they were going to take Williams first overall, a month before the NFL Draft. We even heard from Caleb’s personal QB coach, Will Hewlett, after the NFL Draft, and he said that he was already working on some installs for the Chicago Bears offense with Caleb the last few weeks before the NFL Draft.
So when Poles tells Holcomb that people don’t realize how close they were to taking him, he was simply referring to the idea that they thought McCarthy was QB2 in this draft. But there was never a debate between Williams and McCarthy at Halas Hall.
The question was whether Williams had the mental make-up to be an NFL quarterback, a leader in the locker room, and the man to lead the Bears’ offense. When the Bears answered that question, the decision was made.
But again, had the concerns about Williams been confirmed, the Bears very well could have pivoted and selected JJ McCarthy.
It’s a fun game of “what if,” but the reality of the situation was that it was never truly close. The Bears loved Caleb Williams and decided to draft him first overall.