Caleb Williams wins Bears over with rare talent but even rarer people skills
The bear claw Caleb Williams threw up with his hand on draft night after the Bears chose him No. 1 overall instantly became iconic, and he can’t remember the last time he took a photo with someone who didn’t ask him to do it. It’s so simple, but it resonates.
He took it a step further once he arrived at Halas Hall by leaning into the microphone at the end of every news conference for a “Da Bears” on his way out. He became an influencer before he ever took a snap, and there are montages of his “Da Bears” exits on social media.
Just like the claw, it was impromptu. Williams saw it as his way of reaching out to his new fan base. He loved “Fight On” at USC and “Horns Down” at Oklahoma and saw “Da Bears” as a way to make the sprawling, populous greater Chicago area feel like a little community.
“It’s a phrase that can bring a group together,” Williams told the Sun-Times. “When you start seeing more and more people out on the streets, here at the facility using it, it just brings a group and a collective together. It makes it seem as one.”
It took two words and a hand gesture for a kid from Washington, D.C., who became a college football megastar in Los Angeles to endear himself to ever-skeptical Bears fans by saying essentially that he was one of them. They swooned as they instantly forgot the trail of quarterback heartbreaks that led to this point.
Williams has been outspoken about his intent to redirect that history, and his quest begins with his NFL debut Sept. 8 when they open the season against the Titans at Soldier Field.
He’s fearless, instinctive and perceptive in the pocket. He reads defenses like a veteran. His pocket awareness has been compared to Aaron Rodgers’ and his throwing accuracy from a variety of arm angles reminds people of Patrick Mahomes. That’s a daunting projection for a 22-year-old, but Williams has only heightened hope since he got here. He never asks for patience or restraint.
For all the talent that took him to the Heisman Trophy in 2022 and made him a consensus once-every-few-years draft prospect, it’s Williams’ people skills that blew away Bears teammates and staff over the last four months. He’s effortless in conversation and has a remarkable array of outside interests for someone who immersed himself around age 9 in the drive to become an NFL quarterback.
He lights up the room, and the Bears haven’t had a personality like his at the position since ... ever?
“We’ve all been on teams before where people come into those situations and they try too hard,” general manager Ryan Poles said. “Man, it’s awkward. It’s hard to buy into that.
“Then there’s guys that can navigate that so naturally because they’re authentic and it’s real, and that’s what he’s done. Then you have to perform and do some things that [show] there’s something different about you. Pair that with good, natural social skills, [and] some cool things happen. Then leadership starts to blossom, and that’s what you see now.”
It took Williams a millisecond to trace the origin of that ability. He described his mom, Dayna Price, as “the nicest woman that I know,” and his dad, Carl, has been a prominent commercial real estate developer and entrepreneur in D.C.
Williams watched his dad work. He’d play on Carl’s Blackberry during meetings and eavesdrop. Car rides inevitably were interrupted by a business call, and every interaction was instructive.
“It didn’t matter where you’re from, if you were a woman or a man or whatever you classify yourself as, and it didn’t matter your race, he was gonna talk to you the right way with context,” Williams said. “He’s not fearful of what people think of him. So watching him throughout time has helped me grow in a large aspect.
“[My parents] have been great throughout my life. That’s where a lot of it comes from — being social, being able to have empathy or sympathy for the situation or where people come from and being able to connect. Being easy to talk to and connect with goes a long way within an organization.”
He developed that personality despite a somewhat isolated and unconventional childhood. Between football and being basically an only child because his siblings were much older forced Williams to “grow up a little faster than most.”
When he talks about his singular focus on football, it’s reminiscent of how Tiger Woods grew up. Williams woke up at 4 a.m. to work out and realized the other kids weren’t. He didn’t eat much junk food. He lived alone in a D.C. apartment his parents rented for him while he attended Gonzaga College High School rather than endure the brutal commute from their suburban home.
He credited Carl for taking “the aspirations I set for myself” and keeping those central. He wasn’t forced into this path by overbearing parents; Williams said they were “pushing me to be who I wanted to be.”
He became a man with appeal well beyond football. Williams would be magnetic even if he’d never touched the sport. He's a businessman. He’s big into art and fashion and attended a Louis Vuitton show with girlfriend Alina Thyregod as part of Paris Fashion Week in June.
His interests are varied and eccentric, and he doesn’t shy away from that in the least. He seems impervious to mockery, whether it targets him painting his fingernails or crying in his mother’s arms after a loss last season and saying he just wanted “to go home and cuddle with my dog.” He’s as confident and comfortable in his personality as he is in the pocket.
“That wasn’t an always thing; it was a development thing over time,” he said of his self-belief. “When I look in the mirror, the man that’s looking back, we’re all good every single day, every single morning. That was something that grew over time and it’s gonna keep growing.”
Nobody’s doubting him at the moment. Not here. Bears quarterbacks usually have to win to be embraced, but Williams has a head start because fans have been crazy about him from the beginning. But he and they both want much more.
Williams wants to have the best rookie season ever. He wants to launch “the new era of the Chicago Bears.” He wants to win more Super Bowls than Tom Brady. Those promises are exactly what people want to hear. Now the work begins to fulfill them.