The Bears went all-in by trading for four-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons on Thursday.
All-in on Caleb Williams, that is.
While Simmons fills an obvious weak spot for the Bears and would be a sensible acquisition in a vacuum, no team would make a deal like that unless it believed it already had a championship-caliber quarterback to make a run at the Super Bowl.
Not a quarterback who could get there eventually. Not someone still developing. Someone ready to take them there now. This season.
They sent the Titans their 2027 and ’28 first-round picks for Simmons, plus the Bears traded their ’27 fourth-rounder for the Titans’ ’28 fifth-rounder. Simmons could make his Bears debut Monday at the defending champion Seahawks.
With that deal, the Bears are betting that they have the most important piece in place and that what Williams showed them in the last two games — wins over the Falcons and Patriots — is reflective of what he is, not what he could be. It’s an across-the-board endorsement from general manager Ryan Poles, coach Ben Johnson and the other power players at Halas Hall.
Coming off a hamstring injury, Williams completed 75.4% of his passes and totaled 613 yards with three touchdown passes and no interceptions for a 116.4 passer rating.
For the season, he is second in the NFL in completion percentage (71), ninth in yards per game (255) and sixth in passer rating (105.6). He has five touchdown passes and is one of six quarterbacks who have thrown fewer than two interceptions.
Everything he and Johnson worked on in the offseason is materializing on the field. He still has elite scrambling ability and makes some seemingly impossible throws, but he’s mostly been playing in the pocket with precision.
Poles went into the season already leaning toward a long-term commitment to Williams, who is eligible for a massive contract extension in the offseason. The trade Thursday showed they believe he’s ready now.
They’ve declared an arrival.
The Titans, who drafted Cam Ward first overall a year after the Bears did so with Williams, aren’t anywhere near that level of confidence with their quarterback, and when a team is in that position, it starts offloading assets to stockpile picks and free up salary-cap space.
The Bears assume they’ll be winning and the first-round picks they sent the Titans won’t be especially valuable, perhaps in the range of Nos. 28-32 overall. If that proves true, this trade would be a decisive victory for them, and it’s unlikely they would’ve been able to find a premier defensive end or cornerback picking that late.
As for the Bears’ future, it’s the beginning of what every team does once it secures a franchise quarterback: fortify the parts of the roster the quarterback can’t elevate. With that much money allocated to one position, that player is expected to elevate everyone around him while the team spends heavily on defense.
By the time the Bears pay Williams, the going rate for a starting quarterback could be $70 million per year. His rookie deal, which runs through next season, pays a shade under $10 million on average.
That savings is why the rookie contract window is such a precious opportunity for general managers. It allows them to load up at other positions in a way they can’t once they’re paying top dollar at the most expensive position.
Five teams in the past eight seasons made the Super Bowl in their quarterback’s rookie contract window. The Bears, Patriots and Broncos are all trying to do it this season.
The Bears tried something similar going into the 2018 season, prematurely and incorrectly believing quarterback Mitch Trubisky was on the brink of breaking through, when former general manager Ryan Pace traded two first-round picks for defensive end Khalil Mack and gave him the biggest contract in franchise history.
That unraveled by the following season, sending Pace scrambling for quarterback alternatives. He got another shot at it when he traded up to draft Justin Fields in 2021, but when Pace got fired and Poles took over in 2022, he launched the Bears into an extensive rebuild and moved on to Williams in 2024.
In short, this is the first time in a long time the Bears have been in position to justify taking this big of a swing.
With Williams trending upwardly and the offense already one of the best in the league under Johnson, they already were chasing a Super Bowl and standing in the top 10 in odds to win the championship. Their defense had enough quality starters to get by, depending on the week, and that’s enough of a basis to argue they were one top talent away from contending.
But that belief is rooted in Williams, and that ramps up the pressure a little. He’s in his third season and he should have everything he needs. Time to lead the way.