For the last several years, Randy Trivers has been watching from afar. On Sunday, he’ll have the chance to dial back in up close.
From Section 337 on the club level of Northwest Stadium in Landover, Md., Trivers will watch with a knowing smile and profound admiration as Chicago Bears rookie Caleb Williams displays the quarterbacking gifts he began sharpening about 10 miles down the road at Gonzaga College High School in Washington.
Trivers was Williams’ coach then and quickly became captivated by the young quarterback’s physical skills — talents that will appear on a much bigger stage when the Bears play the Washington Commanders in Sunday afternoon’s showcase NFL game.
Yet Trivers may be most excited for the opportunity to again feel the Williams experience. He can’t wait to sense how Williams is connecting with teammates. How, with his competitive edge and infectious charisma, Williams will orchestrate the game’s energy.
Most of all, Trivers wants to feel the Bears’ belief in Williams and observe how the rookie is using his ability, through connection, to bring out the best in everyone around him.
That has long been one of Williams’ top priorities.
“Caleb is not going to be able to accomplish all the goals he has set for himself without having others on board with him,” Trivers said. “So that connectivity piece he brings is absolutely essential.
“Caleb is smart. And one of the things that fuels him to be a great connector is knowing that his success is dependent on your success — and vice versa. He’s constantly trying to galvanize and bring people together in the name of collective success.”
That may sound basic, even a little hackneyed. But it’s not. Those who have spent significant time inside Williams’ orbit consistently identify his ability to connect as one of his most special gifts, a valuable personality trait that complements his athletic strengths.
It’s a big reason Bears general manager Ryan Poles felt such conviction in drafting Williams with the No. 1 pick in April.
Of course, Williams’ gregarious nature and ability to unify will mean very little if he can’t also read defenses, make good decisions and shred opponents with his playmaking prowess. Many likable leaders have walked onto the NFL stage and been wiped right off because of an inability to regularly meet the moment on game day.
But Williams’ push to create meaningful connections already has proved notable during his first six months at Halas Hall. It has helped him quickly earn the belief and backing of his teammates and coaches while, in turn, creating open and active lines of communication — an absolute must for a player who thrives on continuous feedback and constructive criticism.
“A lot of it is natural,” Trivers said. “But so much of it is intentional.”
Building trust with his work habits and team-first mentality has further helped Williams’ voice resonate. And all of that should buy him time as he acclimates to the challenges of the NFL.
‘I got y’all, boys’
Back in the spring, as Williams casually watched an NFL Films recap of the 2021 Los Angeles Rams’ triumph in Super Bowl LVI, he couldn’t help but notice the unifying energy of one of his favorite quarterbacks.
In his first season in LA, Matthew Stafford had clearly created meaningful connections within the locker room, fueling a 12-win regular season plus playoff victories over the Arizona Cardinals, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and San Francisco 49ers.
Then, on the game’s grandest stage amid football’s most intense pressure, Stafford propelled the Rams offense to a game-winning 79-yard touchdown drive against the Cincinnati Bengals in the final minutes of the Super Bowl.
Williams was struck by how harmonious Stafford and his teammates seemed throughout a defining night in their careers. In so many sequences, the Rams openly expressed their love for one another — out loud, directly and with spirit.
That, Williams said to himself, is it — one of the great separators within football’s best teams.
“Everything is about the bond and the trust you build with each other,” Williams said. “Because then you can go out there and play with a different level of (purpose). Your mentality is different. Everything is different when you’re out there playing for each other and not just playing for yourself.”
Williams has little difficulty tracing his craving for connection to his high school days. At Gonzaga under Trivers, the Eagles devoted substantial effort to strengthening their cohesion. Earlier this year, Williams identified two team-building qualities Trivers taught him to value: togetherness and trust.
“I’ve taken those with me,” he said, “the little things, the pieces he has given me. And I’ve tried to implement that in any way possible throughout my years of playing.”
Whereas Bears coach Matt Eberflus uses his HITS principle as a standard-setting mantra, Trivers asks Gonzaga players to subscribe to “T3,” a core program credo that calls for the entire team to invest in improving its toughness, trust and togetherness.
Williams, Trivers said, was always one of his most loyal disciples. Thus it should come as little surprise that the Bears quarterback still has “T3” representation within his collection of Gonzaga gear.
During Williams’ high school days, whether it was hosting teammates at his apartment to play “Madden” and “NBA2K,” blending different groups of teammates at the local Dave & Buster’s or simply energizing meetings and practices with his positive energy and competitive fire, he constantly made deposits into the relationship bank with confidence they could pay dividends on the football field.
Former Gonzaga teammate Kye Holmes, now a safety at James Madison, still can hear Williams’ confident yet calming voice during times of stress.
“I got y’all, boys,” Holmes recalls Williams saying in a manner that fortified the group.
“It was never, ‘I’m going to go out there and make a play,’” Holmes said. “It was, ‘I got y’all, boys. I got y’all.’ It was always with that team-first mentality.”
Leading by following
Shortly after the Bears drafted Williams at No. 1, immediately named him their starting quarterback and essentially asked him to become the engine of success for the next decade, the 22-year-old rookie was asked how he planned to assert himself in a leadership role.
“To be a great leader,” Williams said, “you’ve got to learn how to follow first. So right now I’m following all the vets. I’m following all the coaches. I’m listening, having both ears open and my mouth shut.”
For many inside Halas Hall, that was a golden example of Williams’ mature outlook and understanding of his place in the earliest stages of his career. And when those words were validated by Williams’ head-down, eyes-open push to grow, the belief in him swelled.
Over the ensuing months, teammates were struck by how naturally Williams engaged — with everyone.
Throughout the locker room, he connected with players on both sides of the ball and across the age spectrum — from fellow first-round pick Rome Odunze to 40-year-old Marcedes Lewis. Williams was respectful and responsive to coaches and charmed just about everyone with his combination of self-confidence and humility.
“It was everyone in the building,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “The chefs in the cafeteria. Our training staff. The equipment people. He treats everyone in a respectful manner and makes them feel seen.
“I don’t know if he knows he’s doing that. It’s just who he is. But that means a lot to a lot of people. He gives people his attention and that ability to feel seen. That’s important and it spreads throughout the building. You can feel that.”
Williams’ affable nature and early deference never were mistaken for a lack of urgency or ambition. There were more than a few fist pumps inside Halas Hall when, barely two hours after being drafted, Williams vocalized his aspiration of becoming an NFL legend.
“My biggest goal,” he said, “is immortality. The only way to reach that is by winning championships.”
The thought process?
“You put dreams and goals in front of you that you aren’t able to reach within a year or two,” he said. “And then you try to go get ’em. You have to consistently not grow tired with consistency. It’s being able to be the same guy (every day), being able to go in, lead the guys and hold them accountable. And they’ll hold me accountable to go get it, too, to have those (big) team goals.”
Make no mistake: In a cutthroat league, such purpose can strike a chord. That’s a lot of what the Bears admired about Williams and what they heard from people who were around him in high school and college.
“He’s not scared for greatness,” said Lincoln Riley, who coached Williams at both Oklahoma and USC. “He’s not scared to put it out there. He’s not scared to be himself.
“You have to have that belief in yourself. You have to have that belief in the people around you. That’s contagious. When a leader or a quarterback feels that way about his team and what they’re trying to accomplish, it energizes the entire group.”
A turning point
Late last month, as the Bears offense staggered through September and processed a particularly bothersome 21-16 road loss to the Indianapolis Colts, Williams was part of the leadership corps — along with fellow offensive captains Kmet, Lewis and DJ Moore — that approached Eberflus and coordinator Shane Waldron with concerns. They vocalized both their diagnosis of the struggles and their solution suggestions.
“We had multiple meetings where we would sit down and talk about things that were working for us,” Williams said. “Things that I like and things that I don’t like. Staying in the flow.”
The captains stayed open-minded to the coaches’ feedback and demands, which contributed to a productive troubleshooting process that — for the time being anyway — seems to have gotten the offense unlocked.
“Collectively,” Kmet said, “everyone did a great job of hitting that whole situation head on.”
Williams was thankful for the backing of his teammates and praised his coaches for “their ability to understand us as players and then listen to us and adapt.”
Across the locker room, players believe that was a turning point that created heightened accountability for everyone while increasing the group’s attention to detail during walk-throughs.
“If you’re not out there doing the right thing, it will be seen and we’re going to redo it,” Moore said.
Williams must be one of the enforcers of that. And as it relates to last month’s problem-solving quest, Kmet appreciated both Williams’ awareness to lean on his older teammates in the communication process and his unwillingness to relax until answers were found.
“At the end of the day, Caleb is all about football,” Kmet said. “That’s what guys gravitate to. Or at least it’s what I do. Like, he will put anything aside for football. And he’ll do anything for his teammates. That’s cool to see.”
‘We trusted each other’
At Gonzaga, Williams’ signature moment came on the final throw of his sophomore season, a preposterous 53-yard Hail Mary as time expired to stun DeMatha 46-43 in the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference championship game.
The sequence required poise in the pocket and a rocket-launched pass that sailed 66 yards through the air and into the hands of receiver John Marshall.
Gonzaga wins on a Hail Mary. pic.twitter.com/NYMBC9f8b9
— BrianDohn247 (@BrianDohn247) November 19, 2018
That triumph, according to those who experienced it, also required a groundswell of focus and belief leading up to the defining moment.
Former Gonzaga linebacker Trey Jamison thinks back to all the moments he spent in the grind with Williams, including grueling summer 7-on-7 tournaments at Pitt and Penn State.
“We’d be playing our eighth game of the day and Caleb would still be up, energized, cracking jokes, talking to everybody, keeping everyone motivated,” Jamison said. “Even little stuff like that, he was always driven to win. No matter how long we had been in the hot sun.
“His drive and his want to see everyone around him be successful is rare. That want-to for the team outshines everything else.”
Williams’ Hail Mary magic, Jamison pointed out, was preceded by another apparent title-winning TD pass in the final minute, that one an 11-yarder and one of Williams’ seven total touchdowns in the game. On his 17th birthday no less.
Somehow, after Gonzaga short-circuited on the ensuing kickoff and allowed a 77-yard DeMatha return TD with 29 seconds remaining, the Eagles didn’t buckle. Amid all that chaos and through every dip, loop and corkscrew of the emotional roller coaster, they maintained their poise with all eyes on their leader.
The Eagles knew Williams would give them a chance as long as everyone else handled their duties. Quickly, their focus returned to the details, to the game-on-the-line play they had practiced countless times.
With the stakes at their highest, the approach was the same.
“You say, ‘Oh, it’s a Hail Mary. Everything’s just kind of thrown together at the last minute,’” Jamison said. “But our guys knew what they had to do. We knew how long Caleb had to hold it for. We knew who had to go up to get the ball. Guys knew the exact spot on the field they had to get to.”
Almost six years later, Jamison’s delight from that night remains palpable.
“When you have a guy like Caleb, it’s just bliss,” he said. “You know at all times that something great can happen. So sometimes you just close your eyes, open them and it’s a touchdown.”
‘Such a genuine dude’
Similar juices seem to be pumping through Halas Hall right now, with the Bears riding a three-game winning streak into Washington and Williams showing regular flashes of playmaking greatness.
Two weeks ago in London, for example, Williams’ second-longest completion covered 27 yards to Kmet — on a play in which the tight end wasn’t even supposed to run a route.
The play-action concept felt discombobulated from the jump. Williams had to evade pressure in the pocket, then broke to his right and, with two Jacksonville Jaguars defenders on his tail, spotted Kmet leaking into a wide-open space.
Wrist flick. Completion. Explosive play.
And not at all how it was drawn up.
“That was a mess of a play,” Kmet said. “And he made it right.”
Kmet’s belief in Williams, both as a playmaker and as a leader, has exploded since they met during the quarterback’s predraft visit to Lake Forest. Kmet was one of four veterans — along with Moore, linebacker T.J. Edwards and guard Teven Jenkins — sent to dinner with Williams at Sophia Steak as part of the Bears’ vetting process and ice-breaking efforts.
Admittedly curious about all the conjecture he had heard and read about Williams’ personality, Kmet wanted to see for himself whether his future quarterback possessed any peculiar eccentricities or diva tendencies.
Before the bill was even paid, Kmet had his mind made up.
“All the things you had heard couldn’t have been further from the truth,” he said. “He was such a genuine dude. And he is so naturally confident in who he is. I do think people can get scared at times when someone is so incredibly comfortable with who they are. But that’s just who Caleb is.”
Over the last six months of working closely together, Kmet has gained a deep appreciation for the ways Williams invests in improvement — both for himself and the team. It’s what Bears quarterbacks coach Kerry Joseph has described as a sort of Jordanesque focus on pursuing a championship.
“He could give two (bleeps) about his stats,” Kmet said. “All he cares about is winning. You can feel that when you’re out on the field with him. You see it in the way his emotions will come out on run plays and other things he’s not all that involved in.
“It’s cool to see. And it’s what you want in your quarterback.”
Growing into his voice
As effusive as Kmet’s praise for Williams is, Moore’s sentiments have been a touch harder to interpret.
Through the season’s first month, an on-field disconnect between Moore and Williams resulted in several high-profile misses. Potential big plays became disappointing incompletions. Moore’s frustrated mannerisms drew widespread scrutiny, with outsiders wondering if the wide receiver’s patience with his quarterback was running thin.
Even after a 105-yard, two-touchdown breakout against the Carolina Panthers in Week 5, Moore’s description of Williams as “bossy” the following week felt to some like a jab.
Moore, though, has repeatedly emphasized that he tries to frame Williams’ demanding tendencies in a positive light, evidence of a young quarterback learning how to use his voice to get teammates locked in to the details of their responsibilities.
“He’s had to grow to where he can tell everybody what’s going on in the huddle and why we’re doing it,” Moore said. “On certain things, if he sees something he doesn’t like, he’ll tell us, ‘Hey, make sure it’s like this so we’re on the same page.’ He had to grow into that.
“Now you can see it. He’s bossy. Not in a mean way but in his own way. So take that as you want. … It’s good to see. It’s good to hear him out there doing that.”
‘It’s kind of become a pattern’
Heading into Sunday’s game, Trivers remains supremely confident about where Williams’ career is headed. He expected an early breakthrough with the Bears, continuing a trend at seemingly every stop of the quarterback’s journey.
At Gonzaga, Williams won the starting job on the varsity not long after he arrived on campus.
In his first game as a true freshman at Oklahoma in October 2021, Williams replaced starter Spencer Rattler and led the Sooners from 21 points down to a ridiculous 55-48 win over rival Texas.
After transferring to USC, he threw for 4,537 yards in his first season with 52 total touchdowns and won the Heisman Trophy.
Now, as a Bears rookie, Williams has catalyzed a 4-2 start and has much of a passionate fan base believing the never-ending search for a QB savior may be over.
The connection piece, Trivers is convinced, always has been a catalyst for Williams’ growth.
“It’s one thing to be the starting quarterback,” he said. “It’s another thing to become the leader of the entire organization and embrace everything that comes with that. But Caleb did that here. And now it’s kind of become a pattern for him. It’s a rhythm that you see in his history.”
What Trivers believes in perhaps more than anything else with Williams is his ability to handle struggle and stress with maturity and perspective. That, too, is a personality trait others respond to.
“Everybody has these extremely high expectations for Caleb to go out and be the superhero,” Trivers said. “Well, it’s not always super smooth for the superhero. There are going to be challenges and hiccups and bumps in the road. But Caleb understands that very well. He knows that’s part of the journey. And he’s not fearful of that.”
That’s one reason Trivers is so eager to get to Northwest Stadium on Sunday, settle into his seat and immerse himself in a viewing experience he thinks will feel very familiar.
“I can almost hear Caleb’s voice as he’s barking out the cadence,” Trivers said. “I can hear his tone in the huddle. I can see him hugging or high-fiving one of his teammates. I can imagine what he’s saying and what his energy will be like.”
For Trivers, it will be compelling to observe how Williams’ Bears teammates and coaches respond.
“All that self-confidence he has? It’s infectious,” he said. “You know when a guy has that certain look in his eyes, that certain bounce in his step. You just know, ‘OK, we’ve got a chance.’
“You see it. You feel it. And it’s authentic.”
