There were times during Bears training camp when rookie quarterback Caleb Williams would make a throw — and then his general manager would do the same. Williams would rifle a pass sidearm or rolling left, looking for all the world like a baseball shortstop, and Ryan Poles would stand on the sideline and pantomime his delivery.
You couldn’t blame Poles for having a blast watching the player that could decide the fate of his franchise for a generation.
“Any time you draft a player because of what you saw in college and you see some of those things transfer over to the pro game, that gets you excited,” Poles said Wednesday. “If it’s the other way, it scares the crap out of you. It’s like: ‘Where did that guy go?’
“We haven't had that with really any of our draft picks. Everybody has been as advertised — or if not better.”
A franchise that has seen false positives in first-round quarterbacks — Mitch Trubisky and Justin Fields never became what their college film promised — believes it has his man. Williams’ first training camp was indeed as advertised. Given the hype surrounding the former Heisman Trophy winner, that’s saying something.
The Bears know Williams will have his ups and downs this season, the way all rookie quarterbacks do. But they’ve also learned that he’ll have flashes of greatness, the way he did when he rolled left and heaved a 45-yard completion to fellow rookie Rome Odunze in the Bears’ exhibition game against the Bengals.
The Bears have surrounded Williams with enough offensive talent — Keenan Allen, DJ Moore and Odunze at receiver, Cole Kmet and Gerald Everett at tight end and D’Andre Swift and Khalil Herbert at running back — that they can be successful if their rookie just plays point guard.
Poles wants Williams to be able to go into the phone booth and emerge as Superman when the moment calls for it, too.
“I want him to lean on the talent around him and then when the time is right – and that’s an instinctual thing and I think that plays right into him – that’s when you do the special (things) …” he said. “Sometimes it’s gonna get out of whack one way or the other, but always come back to that.”
Not every play has to be destined for the highlight reel. Playing in the NFL for the first time, that was never realistic anyway.
“It’s kind of like that neutral place where he’s at his best, and I think he has that just from studying him and watching years of tape on him,” Poles said. “He has that ability and so I think that’s kind of the big thing. Lean on the guys around him, be instinctual, let those wild plays happen at the right time. We saw it in the preseason a little bit. That’s gonna be important.”
The best quarterbacks are undisturbed by the moment.
“It’s their heartbeat,” he said. “Does their heartbeat skyrocket in those pressure situations? Or do you see this calm?”
The Bears won’t find out for sure about Williams’ heartbeat until the regular season starts Sept. 8 against the Titans. But Poles saw glimpses of what he wanted to see when the quarterback was at USC.
“I want the game to slow down, for there to be a level of poise …” he said. “That same combination of taking what a defense gives you, leaning on your talent. And then when you’re forced to be special, be special.”
Poles saw the last quarterback he drafted do just that. Patrick Mahomes throws behind-the-back passes in (preseason) games, sure, but he’s also in the top third in completion percentage among quarterbacks with at least 25 starts since he entered the league in 2017.
Any Mahomes comparison is typically unfair to the player not wearing an arrowhead on his helmet. Just ask Mitch Trubisky, who was on the opposite sideline when the Chiefs quarterback used his fingers to count to 10 — his draft position — when torching the Bears in 2019. But Poles, who worked from the Chiefs from 2009-21, saw Mahomes exude the calm he thinks Williams will have.
“I don’t know what Patrick’s rookie year would’ve looked like, But I know in Year 2 you saw exactly that — when the pressure went up, he was calm,” he said. “Then when it was time to do something special, he was able to do it and connect.
“I also think– we probably don’t talk about it enough– he really gave opportunities for special players to be special. I think that’s what took it over the edge.”
Unlike Trubisky or Fields, the Bears have surrounded Williams with special offensive players. It’s his job to get them the ball — and pick the moments to be special on his own.
