Rumors are swirling around the Windy City. The Chicago Bears own the first pick in this year’s NFL Draft and the right to draft USC quarterback Caleb Williams. However, recent news in Washington D.C. may have made things a bit more complicated.
The Score’s Danny Parkins of the Audacy original podcast “1st & Pod” broke down the recent Caleb Williams rumors and gave his thoughts on what the top prospect may do leading up to the NFL Draft.
“Caleb (Williams) clearly values continuity. He left D.C. to go to Oklahoma for Lincoln Riley and then he followed Lincoln Riley to leave Oklahoma to go to USC,” Parkins said (5:30 in player above). “Kingsbury is now the offensive coordinator for Caleb’s hometown team that has the second pick in the draft and an established veteran-culture coach who, in theory, should have a three- or four-year runway. Obviously, coaches get fired in less than that all the time, but it’s a new owner who hired Dan Quinn presumably for stability after he lost out on Ben Johnson.
I got to be honest, man, as a guy that was looking forward to Caleb Williams coming to Chicago, I have legit anxiety about Kingsbury going to his hometown team.”
Parkins believes Williams will play for the Bears, but things aren’t 100% after recent happenings. There have been varying reports on what Chicago could receive from Washington for the first overall pick.
“If you can trade from one to two and get three first-round picks – if they think that Drake Maye is Justin Herbert, they will do that. I don’t believe you could get that, but if you can and they like Drake Maye, they will do that,” he said. “Or if you can and they don’t like Drake Maye and they like Justin Fields more than I think they do they then would trade the second pick to Atlanta at eight and turn the first overall pick into four or five first-round picks.
If they actually can get three firsts to move down from one to two, they’re going to do it. I don’t believe that to be true.”
Athletes, especially quarterbacks, have been more self-empowered in recent years with the development of the NIL and other programs. We’ve seen former first-overall picks publicly refuse to play for those teams, such as Eli Manning in San Diego and John Elway in Baltimore.
While Williams doesn’t want to be seen as a villain, there is a chance things could move around behind the scenes.
“I think when Ryan Poles and the Bears are interviewing Caleb to find out about Caleb, Caleb is going to be interviewing the Bears to find out about the Bears,” Parkins said. “It’s much more of an equal footing meeting than a job interview to decide if the Bears want to ‘hire’ Caleb Williams.
“So if the Bears don’t have answers that are acceptable to Caleb Williams’ camp, then yes, I could see a backchannel deal of ‘We won’t embarrass you publicly and say that we don’t want to play for you. You don’t embarrass us publicly and make us out to be the villain, but let’s all work together here to make everybody happy.’”
Ultimately, the Bears are still very likely to draft Williams, but it’s going to be a long two-plus months leading up to the NFL Draft on April 25th.
“I think Caleb Williams is going to be a Bear but I do think that the paradigm has shifted and Caleb has more power than basically any number-one pick that we’ve seen in recent history.”