Caleb Williams’ Struggles Prompt Surprising Response from Ryan Poles

The city of Chicago has come to expect subpar play from quarterbacks of the Bears, but when Caleb Williams was selected by the NFL’s oldest franchise with the 1st overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, that was all supposed to change. During his rookie season, Williams performed reasonably well considering the circumstances, but failed to live up to the expectations of those who expected he’d walk into the NFL as a star.

But concerns about Williams’ development have reached an all-time high this month, as a video of the 23-year-old quarterback having a rough go of it during a quick delivery drill have gone viral while new head coach Ben Johnson hasn’t hid his disappointment in Chicago’s sloppy offense throughout camp.

One person who should be concerned about Caleb Williams’ development is Bears general manager Ryan Poles, who enters his fourth season in the role this season. But surprisingly, Poles seems to be amused by all of the Caleb Williams panic in the media rather than fretting about it.

“I actually think it’s pretty cool. I knew there was a bad practice. I’ve seen clips on Twitter. I didn’t know it was a national crisis of Caleb struggling,” Poles told Courtney Cronin of ESPN on August 6. “I would love for it to look really clean and for [Williams] to look like a fifth-year vet right now. But I think, just being in this long enough, what’s reality, though? It’s going to take time. It’s new.”

Poles’ perspective is one that Bears fans would be wise to adopt, at least until a few weeks of the regular season have passed by. Even the most reasonably optimistic expectations for Caleb Williams heading into the 2025 season would’ve accounted for some growing pains as a brand new offense is introduced, and July and August are the months you want those pains popping up.

Caleb Williams Addresses Viral Meltdown

Unsurprisingly, Caleb Williams himself has been asked directly about the video that made its rounds on social media, and much like the general manager who brought him to Chicago, the former Heisman Trophy winner is doing his best to brush all of these concerns off.

“I just laugh at it. I look at ’em and I laugh at ’em,” Williams said with a reassuring smile. “I was competing and I missed it [the net] and it was a fake anger that I had, that I showed. When you’re competing with your friends and something like that happens, you give a few choice words after losing to your buddies.”

In reality, the truth is likely somewhere in the middle. As is the case with nearly everything on social media, it’s likely that this video has been taken out of context to some extent and blown out of proportion. Does that mean Caleb Williams hasn’t been struggling for large chunks of training camp? Of course not. He has, and nobody in Chicago has been shy about that, but to a man in the Bears locker room, you won’t find anyone panicking yet about where Williams or this offense is.

“I don’t expect them to have it mastered, and yet they’re trusting, they’re really jumping in the deep end here and trusting the fact we’ve got a plan in place,” Ben Johnson said. “We know what this is gonna look like Week 1. We’re going to get the pieces aligned correctly.”

Bears See Steady Improvement in Caleb Williams Throughout Camp

Just in case any Bears fans reading along are still chewing their fingernails, allow me to provide two additional quotes that should hopefully alleviate their Caleb Williams-related concerns, if only for the time being.

The first comes from new offensive coordinator Declan Doyle, who shared with ESPN the attributes he’s seen from his quarterback that he’s been most impressed by.

“The best thing he does is the unscripted stuff, the two-minute stuff where he’s able to go out and really play and show the competitiveness that makes him who he is,” Doyle said.

The second comes from Poles, who before his time in Chicago, was in the Kansas City Chiefs organization from 2009 through 2021. Poles served as the Chiefs Director of College Scouting from 2016 to 2018, meaning he oversaw KC’s selection of Patrick Mahomes in the 2017 NFL Draft.

In one particular area, Poles sees similarities between his quarterback now and the quarterback he and the Chiefs traded up for eight years ago.

“As you get older, all of a sudden you can progress from one side of the field to the other — fast,” Poles said. “Very similar to when we were in [Kansas City], Pat [Mahomes] didn’t know coverages, a lot of the big plays were when he just made things happen. And every year you just keep getting better and better at identifying what teams are doing to you.”

With Ryan Poles invoking the name Patrick Mahomes, it’s not going to do anything to calm down Bears fans who have viewed Caleb Williams as the franchise savior since April 2024. But that’s not Poles’ job, and it’s not Williams’ job to be the next Patrick Mahomes. Right now, Caleb Williams needs to focus on continuing to be the best version of himself within Ben Johnson’s offense, and if he can do that, the Bears will be just fine.