Jason Garrett has plenty of critics when it comes to his long tenure as a former head coach. That said, nobody can deny the man knows a lot about coaching quarterbacks. He played the position for 15 years, helping the Dallas Cowboys win three Super Bowls backing up Troy Aikman. Then, he oversaw the ascent of Tony Romo from a solid starter to one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks in the late 2000s and early 2010s. If that weren’t enough, he helped Dak Prescott go from 4th round pick to Pro Bowler. Garrett’s assessment of Caleb Williams is certainly worth listening to.
During “Football Night In America,” he was amused at the sudden panic after the rookie’s erratic debut last Sunday. If people bothered to learn their history, they would realize this is nothing abnormal. Far from it.
“But one thing that I believe everyone needs to remember is, C.J. Stroud is the exception. Dak Prescott winning 13 games as a rookie is the exception. Ben Roethlisberger going to the Super Bowl is the exception.
“There have been a ton of elite quarterbacks in this league, Hall of Fame guys through the years who have struggled at the outset. For anyone to reevaluate Week 1 for a rookie quarterback, I think it’s a mistake.”
He only lacks the necessary experience of playing in the NFL. He’s not used to this level of speed and complexity. That comes with playing games.
“He’s got tremendous instincts for the game,” he said. “(Defenders) around him, he feels them, he sees them, he slides away from them. He is a very instinctive athlete and an instinctive player. Now he has to get to that next level where he starts to understand the game, what they’re doing offensively when you compare it to what the defense is doing, how it all fits together.
“There’s no doubt in my mind, you can’t watch him play football in college and think that he’s not an instinctive quarterback. Now he just needs to understand how to use those instincts at the NFL level.”
Sure, there have been some over the years who had instant success. Stroud, Roethlisberger, Prescott, and Matt Ryan are some examples. However, there are far more who went through some rough growing pains before they got good. Among several examples are Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, Matthew Stafford, Eli Manning, and Josh Allen. It is acknowledged that there is no guarantee Williams will end up like any of them. He deserves the same if they were given the necessary grace period to get better.
Deciding his career is a bust after one game is ludicrous. That is not how the NFL works. For the most part, rookies come in, get their hard-earned lessons, and then apply what they’ve learned to get better. Caleb Williams is more than capable of doing that. It is about whether Bears fans, the media, and his own team will let him. Head coach Matt Eberflus has insisted up and down that this will be a process. It appears he has the right perspective, as Garrett did all those years ago.
