LAKE FOREST, Ill. -- Cincinnati Bengals star quarterback Joe Burrow thought it was obvious: if you spend a draft pick on a quarterback to be the franchise's future, you should pour everything into him from Day 1. That includes making him the starter and giving him as many reps as possible to learn, grow, and succeed early on.
"I think those reps are so valuable," Burrow said after the Bengals' joint practice with the Bears in August. "I think you have to start 'em right away, because you learn so much in that first year when you're getting those reps and when you come in, and you're named the starter immediately ... I'll never quite understand when you draft a guy that you know is going to be your starter, but then you don't name him your starter immediately and so then he misses out on all those reps with the ones that you would have had had you just come in as the starter."
That's a trap past Bears regimes have fallen into with first-round picks Mitchell Trubisky and Justin Fields, asking the young signal-callers to compete with and sit behind veterans Mike Glennon and Andy Dalton.
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Bears general manager Ryan Poles was hired to "break the cycle." The cycle of losing and ruining quarterbacks.
Poles spent the early part of the offseason adding talent to a roster that could support No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams. After drafting Williams in April, the Bears immediately named him the starter and went to work preparing him for everything that was about to come his way.
That included head coach Matt Eberflus insisting that Williams and the first-team offense do their work against the Bears' ascending top-five defense. Instead of allowing Williams to find quick success against the Bears' twos and threes, Eberflus and the Bears' staff made sure the difficulty level was cranked up from the get-go.
"We could do things differently where I say, ‘Hey, we’re going to have the ones go against the twos and the twos go against the ones,'" Eberflus said in June. "But I don’t like that. I don’t like it. I think that Caleb is a talent. A very good talent. His game will go to where it needs to be. I want him to see that in front of him, the windows closing, the variation of what we do on defense, and I want him to see that day in and day out so that when he gets to play somebody else it will look, ‘OK, I’ve been there done that."
Eberflus' plan for Williams and read on the quarterback's ability and competitive drive proved right early on at Halas Hall. The No. 1 overall pick hit bumps in the road but always responded quickly and rarely made the same mistake twice.
"He always rises to the occasion," Eberflus later said of Williams in August after the Bears' preseason win over the Bengals.
CALEB WILLIAMS
The Bears hope that throwing everything at Williams from the day he entered Halas Hall will allow him to easily deal with the rookie quarterback rollercoaster and come out the other side ready to get on the escalator to stardom.
"Basically, having zero knowledge to the knowledge I have now of the offense has been tremendous because they’ve been challenging me from that stage and to now," Williams said Wednesday at Halas Hall. "They haven’t been trying to add to the challenge throughout that time. First day, they were out there trying to get after us, get after me and bringing that challenge to me. It’s been awesome the amount of ball that I’ve been able to see, the amount of ball that I’ve been able to learn from the coaches and also from being out there with the guys, listen to people like Keenan [Allen] and also going versus the defense."
The 32-year-old Allen watched Justin Herbert rise as a rookie quarterback with the Los Angeles Chargers back in 2020. He's no stranger to young, elite talent rising to the top, but he admits there's something different with Williams -- something that is a byproduct of the Bears' quarterback development plan.
“The confidence," Allen said Wednesday when asked about the difference between Williams and Herbert heading into their rookie seasons. "He’s always been the guy. When we first had Herbert, he wasn’t really a starter going into Week 1, so that’s a difference. He’s always been the guy, so he’s always had the expectation of playing at that level that we play at. He’s ready for it. He’s up for the task. His confidence is good.”
Williams arrived in Chicago with an unshakable level of self-confidence. He talked about becoming immortal in Chicago before draft night in Detroit concluded.
But that confidence has only grown as he experienced and digested the bevy of early NFL lessons doled out over the summer. As Williams' confidence grew, so did his teammates' belief that he could deliver during a highly anticipated rookie season.
That manifested itself last week when Williams' peers voted the quarterback to be a team captain. He is believed to be the only first-year player in franchise history to be named a season-long captain since the Bears started keeping track of captains in 2007.
"He went out there and proved himself, took command of the offense," wide receiver DJ Moore said of Williams on Monday. "He started opening up. People saw that and we’re rocking with him."
"He just continues to come in here and be who we want him to be." cornerback Jaylon Johnson echoed. "I feel like we know why we brought him in here, and I feel like he continues to do that, continues to walk in those shoes, and just continues to reset the bar for himself. I feel like it’s just a step in the right direction for him. I don’t think it’s a bit of a surprise coming in here being QB1."
Where Trubisky and Fields started their Bears careers in the background and were unable to assert themselves as immediate leaders of the franchise, Williams has been "the guy" from the jump and the team has coalesced around him.
"The expectation is what it always is: winning," Allen said Wednesday. "No matter who the quarterback is, you want to win. I wouldn’t rather be with another guy right now than Caleb. He’s gotten better ever since we started. The confidence is through the roof.”
Landing Williams was a rare gift for the Bears. Several unlikely things had to occur for the 2022 Heisman Trophy winner to land in Chicago.
With the Bears' best chance to have a franchise quarterback in 40 years secured, Poles and Eberflus crafted a plan to ensure their good fortune wasn't wasted.
Early returns on that plan—which differs from the strategy that derailed Trubisky and Fields' careers—are promising.
Confidence in Williams is sky-high after a summer in which the rookie quarterback showed what he's all about. However, the success of that plan will ultimately be judged by how Williams navigates the expected turbulence of a rookie season and if he exits on a path to stardom.
"He's ready," safety Jaquan Brisker said.