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Excitement Brewing at Soldier Field as Bears Fans Anticipate Caleb Williams’ NFL Debut
For football fans, the wait is nearly over. The NFL regular season is set to kick off this week.
And after a disappointing last few seasons — arguably decades — there’s excitement brewing once again at Soldier Field.
Chicago Bears fans are hoping college phenom Caleb Williams will be the franchise quarterback they’ve long been looking for. While that’s a lot to put on a rookie quarterback, so far Williams appears unfazed by the pressure as the Bears prepare for their home opener against the Tennessee Titans on Sunday.
Below, former Bears offensive tackle James “Big Cat” Williams give us his take on what we can expect.
On high expectations for the current season:
“Everything coming out of the locker room is positive. They talk about how polished (Williams) is, how mature he is and just how unfazed by the little things he is, and hearing that come out of the locker room is a good thing. You’ve had a couple of years of different things floating out of the locker room about the quarterback situation and your quarterback. So it’s good to hear everyone on the same page right now.”
On the Bears’ chances of making the playoffs:
“I don’t think it’s for sure, but I do believe they have the pieces to make it work. One good thing about the Bears season this year is the conference games are backloaded, so they’re towards the end of the season. So they have an opportunity to work on their craft to get a little better before they get into the conference games.”
On the hype around rookie quarterback Caleb Williams:
“When you pick a guy first overall pick in the draft, you’re expecting a lot out of them. You like what you’ve seen out of him, but you do have to understand that he’s young and he’s going to make mistakes. It’s about how he learns from those mistakes, how he comes back from those mistakes, how the guys interact with him when he does make those mistake because you have a veteran group around him that you have structured to help him. Now, they’ve got to not only help him with catching the ball, running the ball and scoring touchdowns, but they have to help him when times get hard and that’s what I’m looking forward to seeing.”
On the Bears offensive line:
“I think when that line is healthy, I think that line will be very good. Keeping them healthy is going to be the question. Interchanging lines is difficult, so we have to see how healthy they can stay.”
On the pressure on head coach Matt Eberflus:
“He’s under a lot of pressure because you have to do better than the 7 and 10 season that you had last year. You have a young quarterback. You don’t want your young quarterback that everyone’s so high on to start off his career with two different head coaches, two different offensive coordinators. You never know how things like that are going to pan out. So with (Eberflus) calling the defense, with some of the things that they seem to want to run this season as far as the defense goes, I think they’ll be able to take some of the pressure off the offense and allow them to score some points. I think he’ll be OK. I think it’s going to take a major meltdown for them to get him (Eberflus) out of here.”
On facing the Tennessee Titans Sunday:
“I think it will be a close one. Tennessee has bolstered their team, so I think it’ll be a very competitive game. It should be fun to watch.”
