WARE, England — The little brother has piped up of late, and from the vantage point of DJ Moore, it’s all part of the maturation process for rookie quarterback Caleb Williams.
The veteran wide receiver, coming off a two-touchdown performance in last Sunday’s victory over the Carolina Panthers, made that reference on Wednesday afternoon. The Chicago Bears had two walk-throughs at a quiet countryside resort north of London, where the team will play the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday.
The Bears are 3-2, over .500 after five games for the first time since the 2021 season, and feeling pretty good about how things are developing for Williams. His passer rating has improved in each game since Week 2 and he’s played turnover-free ball the last two weeks. Now, the Bears prepare to face a Jacksonville defense that is last in the league in pass defense, allowing an average of 287.8 passing yards per game.
“It’s amazing,” Moore said. “He’s taken those strides that he needs to. He’s been bossy lately, telling us that we need to be in on the details. We really do for him to be the best player he needs to be.”
The 22-year-old rookie is bossy?
“What I mean by bossy is, if we don’t hit something in practice, he’s going to tell us how we need to run it and this and that,” Moore explained. “And we just look at him and be like, ‘OK.’ That’s him being a leader. He’s a little bossy. It’s the little bro.”
General manager Ryan Poles, speaking for the first time since the season began, said Williams is right where he needs to be in his development. Poles didn’t cite the oft-quoted “comparison is the thief of joy,” but he said pretty much the same thing in how he views that development versus the urge to consider how other rookies, like Washington’s Jayden Daniels, are playing.
“The human side of it is you want your guy to just take off and roll,” Poles said. “But everyone’s journey is going to be different. I think the important thing is for Caleb to understand that as well and run his own race and he’s done that well in terms of just focusing on ‘how can I get better? How can I put our team in a position to win games?’”
The reality is Williams and Daniels are both playing well and a weekly referendum is nothing more than talk-show fodder.
Williams completed 20 of 29 passes for 304 yards and two scores in the 36-10 beatdown of the Panthers. He’s got two 300-yard games, one more than Justin Fields had in three seasons. But that’s another comparison game the Bears do not concern themselves with.
“I think he’s learning how to play professional football,” Poles said. “And when I say that, that means to have a winning mentality in terms of what does it take to win football games from the quarterback position?
“You’ve seen that in terms of the efficiency, protecting the football, taking what’s given to him and then going into this last game, now explosives are starting to show up. So, I really like his progress, I love the work ethic and the time that he’s put into it, the grit and toughness, the ability to bounce back from tough games. He’s right where he should be and he’s continuing to get better.”
It’s not lost on Poles that Williams, the offense, the line — all of it — looked significantly better against the Panthers and Los Angeles Rams, two teams struggling on defense.
“But his operation part, I thought was really clean,” Poles said. “From watching his eyes and just going through the process, it was more poised and controlled, and he knew where to go with the ball faster. Those are all promising things to see, regardless of if you’re going against the scout team.
“And I think, too, you say, shouldn’t these things be ready to go at the end of the preseason? It’s a different speed. There’s different combinations of guys out there. I think he’s done a good job of improving over the last few weeks.”
Williams has shown improved play from the pocket in a short time and that’s essential to his developmental arc because it can be such a detour for so many young quarterbacks, the kind of thing that eventually turns into a “road closed” for many.
“I think it helps that we’ve created more depth to the pocket,” Poles said. “That’s important for him. Because once he gets vertical, he has the ability to manipulate and stay alive to keep his eyes down the field. But he does look more poised and I think that’s part of getting the reps and also understanding where everyone is going to be. And that trust too.
“I thought early there were some reps where he was drifting a little bit to the left side that caused even more pressure. So he looks more calm and collected and moving through his progressions.”
Williams joked that being called bossy sounds a little “sassy,” but he’s good with it as long as it’s pulling everyone together on the same page.
“Partially, it was me learning everybody and understanding how everybody reacts,” he said. “Certain people you can be a little bossy with, certain people you have to talk very monotone and in control of yourself and other times there’s people that you can just kind of lash out at. I don’t really lash out much. That’s not really my vibe.
“But just always coming over to talk to the guys when I can. Growing up a little bit. Understanding that even when I’m frustrated about maybe a drive or a play that we had that we may have messed up or whatever the case may have been, understanding that there’s another drive coming, there’s another part of the season that we have to focus on also. Being able to go over and talk to them and understand how and what they need to hear and then from there moving on.
“The other part of it is getting more comfortable in understanding the offense a little bit better and getting more comfortable calling it and being in games, being in live-action moments, I think, has helped me.”
