Experts Are Down On Caleb Williams' Future But Here's A Perfect Player Comp To Give Bears Fans Reason To Hope
Todd Rosenberg. Getty Images.Caleb Williams V2024 vs V2025 is going to be fascinating to watch play out. It's almost like a science experiment where they put the best quarterback prospect in years with the worst coach and worst offensive coordinator perhaps in the history of football and - oh yeah - an awful offensive line. You know… just to see what happens. Then, in V2025, see how this "generational" prospect does with the most sought after coach in years and a rebuilt offensive line that has the envy of many teams. Classic within-subjects design.
It seems most are… well… Bearish on Caleb being able to put this all together and make good on his #1 overall draft capital.
I heard Mike Sando chime in on Ryen Russillo's podcast the other day. As a Caleb guy, Russillo desperately poked and prodded for anything to cling some hope onto for his guy. And Sando gave him nothing. Basically, out of the top-five rookie quarterbacks of 2024, Sando would bet Caleb Williams does not have a top-two career of the bunch. That was about the nicest thing he had to say. And it came down to that same idea everyone is talking about.
Processing. And taking sacks.
And it's not just film guys. My guy Scott Barrett dove into all the new age dank stats and isn't quite what you'd call enamored with what he sees…
Being a Bears fan is a sad drug. But maybe the sacks Caleb (and Justin) took paid off for those times that they needed an extra moment to launch a dinger down the field.
Shoutout Justin Fields on this one for remarkably being completely average. That'd have been really good progress if years worked in reverse.
Back to Caleb. Is this something that is going to be fixable? That's what we get find out in this little experiment because he went from having the worst environment possible to the best. Ben Johnson is that guy. If he can't do it, no one can. And while preseason is what it is, the processing and quick decision making certainly looked different in Williams' first game action with a competent NFL coach guiding him, weapons to work with, and a functional offensive line.
Backup defenders? Sure. But the things you wanted to see out of Caleb were at least there.
Let's explore some history on all this. What examples are there of quarterbacks who took as many sacks as Caleb did in his rookie season somehow turning into something? What is he really going up against here? I made this giant list of 100 rookie quarterbacks with the most sacks in their first year. I went ahead and added sack's per game rate for their first five years too so we can observe the trend and find any that might have improved. Maybe a little over kill going top-100, but perhaps you'll find something I missed too.
FYI - league average is about 1.75 sacks per game. At least for 2024.
A few notes. First and foremost - Dieter Brock deserved a second chance. I'm just going to say that without any additional context. That's a sad NA in his second year sack rate column. I also see Peyton Manning managed to have just 22 in his rookie year despite having an absolute train wreck to work with. Then again, he pretty much chucked it to the other team instead. Then you have someone like Bryce Young who's right next to Caleb on this list. His sack rate dropped almost in half in year two. Sure, he missed time, but this is a per game stat here.
Justin Fields is also a little interesting. He made zero progress for his first three years hovering around 3 sacks per game - about twice league average. Until he got to Pittsburgh where Tomlin and company were able to scheme around his weakness. It'll be interesting to see if this sticks in New York. My guess is it does not.
None of these guys offer any glimmer of hope. But the next guy I found does.
Warren Moon. 12th row on the list with 47 rookie season sacks. While his sacks per game rate increased slightly in his second year, he was able to figure things out in Houston enroute to becoming a perennial pro bowler afterwards. You can see his progress on this year-over-year sack rate trajectory for the top-15 rookie quarterback sack takers.
The blue trend line represents all quarterbacks here and it shows a tendency for rookie quarterbacks to have fewer sacks in year two before regressing back a little bit and improving from there. My guess is their coaches schemed to help them out in year two since they were, by rule here, the most sacked rookies on record. But this is good news for Bears fans. While it's true sacks are very often - if not most often - a quarterback stat, that doesn't mean they can't improve on it.
Especially for a #1 overall pick. Guys with max potential who start on absolute cluster fuck teams. While the Bears earned their #1 pick for Caleb via trade, I think we can all agree the coach made up for it to deem them just as bona fide of a cluster fuck organization. May as well have been the worst team in the league.
Actually, let's run that list again but only for overall #1 pick quarterbacks.
And here's the trend of sacks taken per season. You'll notice a nice little dip in year two and it pretty much flattens out unless you're Peyton Manning who was ridiculously low from the jump.
This is interesting because Manning was more of an interception thrower than a sack taker. Williams is the total opposite. No #1 overall pick threw more rookie interceptions than Manning while only Browns legendary bust Tim Couch threw fewer. Now maybe you think throwing more picks early in better in the long run. Terry Bradshaw's 24 rookie picks was second to Manning's 28 after all. Then again, Joe Burrow is down there with Caleb on the low-end with just 5 JaMarcus Russell had 4.
This is borderline analysis paralysis at this point, so I'll just say Warren Moon is a fair example for some historical hope us Bears fans can lean on. Their games are similar so there's no reason to say for sure that Caleb won't be able to figure this out. And with Ben Johnson leading him and actual professional offensive linemen?
Give me the Kool-Aid. I'm all in! Caleb will be a top-two quarterback from the 2024 class. Bookmark that Mike Sando!