Black-and-white photographs and grainy videos are all you ever see of Sid Luckman.
The greatest quarterback in Chicago Bears history, who retired in 1950 after leading the team to four NFL championships, played in an era so far removed from today’s game, it’s impossible to compare him to any modern QB, much less one of our own.
But if Bears rookie Caleb Williams lives up to the massive hype that accompanied his arrival in town, you’ll probably be seeing and hearing a lot more about Luckman this year. If Williams is truly The One, the Bears can move on from a past that has haunted the organization for seven-plus decades.
Like the 2016 Cubs squashing the Billy Goat curse, Williams can end the curse of Sid Luckman.
If not, well, that’s too scary a scenario to ponder right now.
Suffice to say there’s no black and white about this Bears season, which begins to unfold Sunday against the Tennessee Titans at Soldier Field.
Either Williams is as good as advertised and the Bears at least contend for the playoffs, or it’s the same old Bears, that franchise still stuck in the Sid Luckman time loop.
Gradual improvement? Rookie mistakes?
No one wants to hear about it. The possibility of Williams struggling, as most rookie quarterbacks do when learning the league, is not even whispered in hushed tones.
When former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick recently downplayed Williams’ preseason stats, saying “there were a couple of highlight plays, but they weren’t that good,” he was pegged as a grouchy old man instead of a Hall of Fame-bound coach giving his analysis.
What does he know about quarterbacks anyway?
Rarely has a rookie entered the NFL and changed his team’s fortunes overnight. But that’s the task Williams has been handed, and failure is not an option.
The No. 1 pick in the 2024 draft moved into the starting role before the preseason began and now is expected to replicate the season that Houston Texans rookie C.J. Stroud had last year: 4,108 passing yards, 23 touchdowns and a postseason appearance.
Considering no Bears quarterback ever has thrown for 4,000 yards in a season, it’s a lot to ask. But that’s just the start. Once will not be enough.
It’s Caleb’s era. It’s Caleb’s town. It’s Caleb’s time.
If there was any question about those expectations, it was answered in the first episode of HBO’s “Hard Knocks” when Williams was introduced with the same theme song, the Alan Parsons Project’s “Sirius,” that was used to introduce Michael Jordan and the six-time champion Bulls. The implication, that Williams would be the Jordan of the NFL, was perhaps unfair but not unexpected in this day and age, when everyone is looking for the next GOAT.
It was only four years ago that Justin Fields entered the scene as the next potential “greatest Bears quarterback since Luckman.” While he did not fail miserably, he certainly didn’t succeed. Fields was given a large share of the blame for the Bears’ ineptitude since 2021, in which they’ve gone a combined 16-35 under coaches Matt Nagy and Matt Eberflus.
After an 0-4 start last year, Eberflus appeared on his way to becoming a former head coach, but the Bears rallied to go 7-6 the rest of the way and pave the way for the optimism surrounding Williams’ arrival. We knew drafting Williams was a possibility then and have had about 10 months to dream of what he could do as a Bear. Optimism has spread like a fire, fueled by a city thirsting for something new.
The Bears’ projected leap from a sub-.500 team to a playoff-worthy ensemble was perhaps expected after a busy offseason for general manager Ryan Poles and with a relatively easy schedule.
New weapons such as wide receivers Keenan Allen and rookie Rome Odunze and tailback D’Andre Swift should ease Williams’ transition in his rookie year. An improved defense, with Eberflus at the command and Montez Sweat on the attack from Day 1, should keep the Bears in games so Williams can do his thing. They even drafted a punter — a punter! — to improve the special teams.
It all sounds so simple.
But these are the Bears, mind you. Nothing goes easy with this franchise, as evidenced by the long and arduous pursuit of a new stadium to replace the revamped Soldier Field.
So are we setting ourselves up for utter disappointment by putting our faith in the Bears? It’s not unheard of in Chicago, where thinking with our hearts repeatedly trumps thinking with our heads.
And it’s true we’re in the midst of one of the worst stretches in Chicago sports history. The Cubs have underachieved once again. The Blackhawks are in a long, slow rebuild. The Bulls have been a rerun the last three years. The White Sox are en route to becoming the worst team in major-league history.
It’s a smorgasbord of badness, and it’s up to the Bears to change the city’s fortunes and give fans something to root for again.
We like to think of Chicago as a great sports town, which it surely is. But losing has taken its toll. We’re beaten, bothered and bewildered by the absence of excellence. A town that worships at the altar of deities such as Jordan, Walter Payton, Dick Butkus and Ernie Banks needs someone to cling to and a team that makes us eager and excited for Sunday afternoons in the fall.
Welcome, Caleb, and don’t worry about having the entire city on your shoulders.
Luckman did just fine.
