The last time the Bears went to Lambeau Field, quarterback Justin Fields was auditioning for 31 other NFL teams.
Sunday, his replacement, Caleb Williams, will showcase what he can do for a select few head coaching candidates scattered across the country.
Despite hope of the contrary over the past year, the Bears still haven’t solved the most unanswered question in the sport. Williams has struggled badly enough as a rookie that the Bears fired their head coach and offensive coordinator and are riding a 10-game losing streak. He’s also shown enough flashes of competence — and at times potential stardom — to remain by far the most attractive part of the Bears’ head coaching vacancy.
Bears president/CEO Kevin Warren and general manager Ryan Poles have been doing background research on head coaching candidates for the past month and can begin requesting interviews with coaches who work for other NFL teams on Monday. The main question they’ll ask candidates is how they plan to take Williams’ game to the elite level the Bears think he’s capable of reaching.
The franchise’s optimism about Williams hasn’t changed despite a rookie season that was anything but the slam-dunk success story the Bears envisioned when they drafted the USC star first overall.
The Bears’ top coaching targets have left little doubt about Williams’ skill level.
“There’s no question this guy’s talented,” Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson said last month.
“He’s super-talented,” Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores said in November.
“He’s going to be one of the top guys in the league for a lot of years,” Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury said in October.
Williams finishing the season with a flash of what 2025 could become will make the Bears’ job that much more attractive. He’s coming off his worst game of the season. In a 6-3 loss to the Seahawks, Williams posted his lowest passer rating since Week 2 and fewest passing yards since Week 1. He was sacked seven times and enters Sunday’s rivalry game nine sacks shy of setting the NFL’s single-season record of 76.
The Bears thought they were long past such performances when they decided to draft Williams and trade Fields, who struggled in last year’s season finale. Fields went 11-for-16 for 148 yards and managed nine points in the Week 18 loss to the Packers. He said goodbye to fans after the game —‘‘Whether [I’m] here or not, I have no regrets,” he said — and was eventually traded to the Steelers for a conditional draft pick that landed in Round 6.
Williams has proven to be a better passer than Fields — his 3,393 passing yards rank fifth in franchise history — but has won a lower percentage of games as the starter than his predecessor did in Chicago.
“The greatest thing for Caleb is experience,” offensive coordinator Chris Beatty said this week. “After that, you sit back and can say, ‘It was a little harder than I thought it was going to be.’ I think we all go through that. We come in and think, ‘We’re gonna take this thing over,’ and you get humbled.
“This league will humble you.”
Though his presence will dictate almost everything the Bears do, Williams doesn’t expect to be an active participant in the Bears’ search.
“Just hope and believe, and faith that those guys upstairs, they make the right decisions,” he said.
He knows what he wants.
“Being tough on me, challenging me,” he said. “Not saying that [interim coach Thomas Brown] or anybody here hasn’t … Just a consistent challenge throughout the season but also before the season.
“A challenge is also holding people accountable, and that starts before the season and making sure that everybody is where they need to be and the details are on point. And we’re challenging each other — whether it’s coaches or players — and bringing that type of mindset and challenge to the Chicago Bears.”