When first overall pick in the 2024 draft Caleb Williams took the field for the first time in a nearly real NFL game last Saturday against the Buffalo Bills, you could almost see the clamps of the Chicago Bears' 75-year quarterback curse coming off. Yes, it was a preseason performance, and we're all trained to take such things with a grain of whatever, but Williams showed enough of his alpha traits to create considerable excitement.
In Chicago's 33-6 win, Williams completed four of seven passes for 95 yards, no touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 101.8. One of his incompletions was a dropped pass by tight end Cole Kmet, and another was a pass to receiver DJ Moore that was defended well by cornerback Kendall Williamson. In his first NFL cauldron, Williams had one throw he might like back — a scramble-drill throw to receiver Rome Odunze that missed the mark — but overall, it was an outstanding performance.
After the game, Williams was eager to break down what had happened.
"It felt good," the rookie said. "There's always a little bit more of a focus you have going into games for whatever reason, even if you try and enter that mindset and things like that throughout the weeks. It's just a sense of control, a sense of progress, a bunch of different things that when you get into games, the comfort level and all of that normally skyrockets."
The first play Williams described was the big play from running back D'Andre Swift with 12:49 left in the first quarter. It was a quick screen that quickly turned into something more — a 42-yard gain. It looked like Williams hit Swift on a no-look pass, but that's not quite what happened. The Bills brought a five-man pressure, and it looked like the protection broke down. Williams had a different explanation.
"I did see [Swift]," Williams said, via the Bears' official site . "It wasn't a no-look. I wish I could claim it was, but it wasn't. So, I saw it open and I could feel the defenders breaking through the line, which they should on a screen. So [the] offensive line did a great job making it seem believable that they were gonna let up a sack. Then [I] tossed it over the [defender's] head and we got around 40 yards or so, so it was great."
The second play Williams got into was his 26-yard completion to Kmet with 5:11 left in the first quarter. The Bears were in 12 personnel with Kmet and fellow tight end Gerald Everett staying in to block, and Kmet running a deep corner route. Williams was pressured by defensive end Dawuane Smoot , who refuted Everett's attempt to block, and he responded by whipping his core and his shoulders to the target, and zipping an incredible deep pass.
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"We've been repping this play for a while now, and just getting those reps in has been key," Williams said.. You come out on gameday and the seas part and Cole is running down the sideline. My job is just to get him the ball in space and let our players like Cole and them do their magic. Cole did a great job selling it and breaking it to the corner."
Finally, there was Williams' 13-yard run — his only run of the game — with 3:46 left in the first quarter. The Bills dropped to 2-Man coverage out of an initial Cover-1 look, and plastered Williams' receivers across the field. As things compressed on third-and-9, Williams decided to take things into his own hands.
"At first I thought — I think [safety] Damar [Hamlin] was on the left side — I thought he was gonna rotate and the right safety was gonna rotate down," Williams recalled. "He bluffed it and got over top of the vertical to Rome [Odunze]. After that, I got down to my back, and my back was covered and I saw the seas part, realized it was 2-Man, and took off."
It was a small sample size overall, but what Caleb Williams showed in his NFL debut gave fans and analysts a lot to like.
"You have to understand where we are and understand what we have and where we're headed — that's the most important thing," Williams concluded. "But you also have to be where your feet are. So when you're out there on the field preparing for this game, you're enjoying it, you're having fun, you're having a blast on the field.
"When we get in early tomorrow, we take a step back, we go through the tape and then onto the next preseason [game]. You take it from there and you keep growing, you keep growing, you keep growing and then we just keep counting those days, counting those hours and getting after it."
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