Bears quarterback Caleb Williams was front and center Thursday night, sitting in the first row behind the Cubs’ home dugout next to Bulls players Caleb Wilson and Matas Buzelis and leading the Wrigley Field crowd in “PCA!” chants. He could have chosen to watch his friend Pete Crow-Armstrong from a more secluded perch — or in front of a television — but that would have ruined the fun.
“I like being out with the people supporting one of my friends, a Cubby, Pete,” he said Tuesday.
Williams went incognito the next night. Standing on the same field where he plays his home games, the Bears quarterback watched the Kanye West concert alongside tens of thousands who had no idea who he was. Williams wore a black balaclava that covered his head, neck and new mustache — and a pair of dark sunglasses — inside Soldier Field. He got a kick out of hiding in plain sight to watch West, the Chicago-born rapper who also goes by Ye.
“Being able to get away in those three-and-a-half days that we had [off] is important,” he said.
After the attention given Williams all offseason — from his “Madden” cover to the Jaguars coach bemoaning his ubiquity on the NFL’s web site — it was fitting his summer ended that way. Williams goes back to work Sunday in Charlotte. The months of talk — about what Williams can be, or can’t, and what the Bears will do for an encore in Ben Johnson’s second year — will give way to what he does on the field.
“You get to the end of training camp and you’re fighting the urge to want to get to this point of the year,” Williams said. “You’re excited to be here. It all matters now. Everything we did, everything we’re going to do on that field out here, is going to matter on game day.”
Making a first impression, then, will be important.
“Being able to try and get out there, set the tone, start fast,” Williams said.
He rattled off what he wanted to see against the Panthers, who went 8-9 last season but somehow won the NFC South.
“Get a couple completions, you know, run the ball well early on, have great communication on the field but on the sideline and things like that,” he said. “Staying level headed, it’s going to be a big piece of it as a team and as a collective. Bad things are going to happen — and then the severity of the bad, we can sort of control. … Being level headed and controlling yourself, your attitude and your energy.”
Johnson was careful not to make too much out of Week 1 — it’s a long season — but understood the impact a strong start Sunday could have on the early part of the season. Three of their next four games will be against the division rival Packers and Vikings — and the Eagles, who went 11-6 last year.
“The best teams in the NFL, they start fast and I think they end well,” Johnson said. “They’re able to handle whatever adversity comes their way whether guys go down, other guys step up. I think they beat teams winning records and playoff teams. We’ve got one of those Week 1 as well. I don’t think there’s any secret to coming out of the gate hot.”
A year ago at this time, Williams and coach Johnson were wondering how they’d work together. His problems this year, by comparison, are good ones to have.
“Getting a new coach, you’re wondering how you’re going to gel on game day, how things are going to work out,” Williams said. “He was obviously probably wondering the same thing going into Week 1.
“I would say that’s the biggest thing — the confidence in myself and the playbook and the things that I know and recognizing defenses and checking the ball down, getting the ball into my guys’ hands, delivering a good ball. I think that’s where I’ve grown and where we’ve grown.”
The same rationale behind Williams needing to start games better — his lowest passer rating grades last year were in the second and first quarter, respectively — applies to the beginning of the season. Just as the Bears want Williams to focus on getting easy completions to start games, he needs to get the season off to a strong start against a team they’re favored to beat.
Do it, and some of the hype begins to feel justified.
“We’d love to get a lead and protect the lead,” Johnson said. “If we don’t happen to play the game that way, and we’re behind, we got to find a way to come back from behind. So we’ll find out a lot about this team. We won’t know Week 1 who we are yet. So that’s where this this first month, all of September, is going to be a lot of trying to figure out who this 2026 team is and where we need to complement each other.”
Williams feels the weight of expectations. But he said they’re coming from inside the building, not outside. Finally, Sunday, he’ll get a chance to try to live up to them.