Caleb Williams and family didn’t want him to join Bears before draft, new book says

Bears quarterback Caleb Williams was so wary of joining the Bears before the draft that his family spoke with lawyers about trying to find a way around the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement, according to a new book.

According to Seth Wickersham’s upcoming book “American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback,” Williams’ father Carl called Chicago “the place where quarterbacks go to die” in the months preceding the 2024 NFL Draft. Williams himself said that “I don’t think I can do it with [Bears offensive coordinator Shane] Waldron,” according to the book.

Williams was impressed by the Vikings and head coach Kevin O’Connell in the pre-draft process and said he’d like to play there, but he believed the Bears were unlikely to trade the pick to a division rival.

Knowing Bears general manager Ryan Poles was likely to draft him first overall, Williams and his father believed the only way to avoid the Bears taking him would be to start a smear campaign against the team. Eventually, according to the book, Caleb Williams decided he “wasn’t ready to nuke the city.”

At the NFL Scouting Combine, Williams said he was willing to play for the Bears.

“If I get drafted by the Bears, I’ll be excited,” Williams said on March 1, 2024. “If they trade the pick, and I get drafted by someone else, I’m just as excited.”

After visiting Halas Hall the next month, Williams told his father that the was excited to help rebuild the Bears.

“I can do it for this team,” Caleb told his dad, according to the book. “I’m going to go to the Bears.”

Wickersham followed Williams in college for a book about quarterbacks at every level of the sport. The quotes were excerpted by ESPN, where Wickersham is a writer, on Thursday. A Bears spokesperson declined comment when reached by the Sun-Times.

The book claimed that Carl Williams told agents before the draft that “I don’t want my son playing for the Bears.” He also called the rookie wage scale “unconstitutional” and “the worst in sports history” and even considered steering his son toward the minor-league USFL. Williams could have decided to return to college, too, but didn’t.

The Bears took Williams No. 1 overall. Williams was proven right about Waldron — the Bears fired both the coordinator and head coach Matt Eberflus in the middle of the quarterback’s rookie season. Williams told his father that at times last year he would watch film without coaches there to give him any guidance — a disturbing detail.

“No one tells me what to watch,” he told his father.

The Bears replaced Eberflus with the hottest candidate on the market, Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, in part by doubling their head coaching salary.

The day Johnson was introduced in January, Williams was he was “extremely excited” about the hire. Johnson was his first choice.

“Once I got off the phone — I was driving on the highway, I don’t know if it was safe or not — but I gave out a loud yell and scream of just excitement,” he said.