Williams Delivers in 'Now (Preseason) Time'

Even With 'Bears Vision 2025' Goggles Off, QB's Development Crystal Clear

Caleb Williams marched Chicago right to the end zone on the opening drive of the Bears' 38-0 preseason mauling of the Buffalo Bills Sunday night at Soldier Field

By Clete Campbell

Windy City End Zone

They are called Optimism Goggles (aka “Bears Vision 2025”) and they never provide 20/20 vision and realistic clarity of the images they are observing.

If anything, they present an extremely near-sided lens. Their long-distance vision, ophthalmologists report, can be termed legally blind.

At times, Optimism Goggles, most famously worn by the awesome and eternally optimistic Bill Swerski and his beloved Superfans from “Saturday Night Live,” can’t see the forest through the trees.

Media pundits and Bears fans themselves, are reminding Bears Nation to check their vision after watching Caleb Williams and the Bears first team offense carve up the Buffalo Bills’ second team defense on a preseason statement drive Sunday night that kicked off the Bears’ 38-0 exhibition dissection of Buffalo at Soldier Field.

“It was ‘Now Time’ to show results,” the Tribune’s game headline read.

And Williams – who has been dissected more times than frogs in Chicagoland high school science classrooms over the last two years – delivered in his first game action in Ben Johnson’s more-complex-than-the-average-plot-of-a-Christopher Nolan-movie offense.

“The first pick in the 2024 draft completed throws of 18 yards to rookie first-round pick Colston Loveland and 29 yards to tight end Cole Kmet on a game-opening 92-yard march that concluded when Zaccheaus snagged a throw in the middle of the field on third-and-6, hurdled a tackler and went the distance,” The Associated Press reported.

“I think it sets the tone for how we expect ourselves to go out there and play, and go out there and perform,” Williams said. “It was extremely important.”

And extremely optimistic for the ever-hopeful Bears fan.

For a truly objective viewpoint for the man who wished his defense did a better job containing Caleb Williams, let’s go to Bills head coach Sean McDermott.

“The quarterback cannot go in the first drive of the game unaffected and he (Williams, with a 130 QBR) was in a rhythm right away and now you're dealing with it,” McDermott said. “The quarterback ratings at the end of the game says it all.”

There’s no doubt Williams crushed Mitch Trubisky (7-of-13 for 56 yards) in this completely non-title battle of Bears franchise QBs of the past and the future. But what really counts is how Williams – under more scrutiny than perhaps any NFL quarterback this season (including Patrick Mahomes) – calmly responded to the universe-size expectations and demands Bears fans have of him.

"He's really been locked in," Johnson said of Williams, via Bears.com. "Anytime you're a young player, there's usually a couple steps forward and one step back and that's really been the story of his training camp.

“He and I have been really open and honest about that as we've gone through. He's had some really good practices, and he's had a couple where it's like, 'That isn't good enough, bud.' I thought really the three days of practice we had this week, and this game were the most he's stacked up good days in a row right now. The challenge is going to be to keep pushing in that direction."

And as we close, we all need to take off our Optimism Goggles (aka “Bears Vision 2025”) and look closer, USA Today’s Nate Davis says.

“Caleb Williams’ 2025 preseason debut was perfect – but don’t go nuts, Bears fans,” Davis’ game headline read.

“It was just a year ago that optimism was soaring – raises hand – in Chicago, Williams, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2024 draft, seemingly landing in as favorable a situation as any top pick ever had considering the talent that would be surrounding him,” Davis remembers.

“But he didn’t. Turns out the guy picked after Williams, Jayden Daniels, was the one who instantly turned a woebegone franchise around and maybe had the best rookie season of all time while leading the Washington Commanders to the NFC title game − a performance that reset the bar for Williams.

“While Daniels excelled, Williams was torpedoed by his own bad habits, a brutally tough division and an organizational infrastructure simply unable to cultivate him – no accomplished offensive coordinator, no wizened backup quarterback to lean on, apparently no one to advise him to just get rid of the damn ball and live to fight another play. Chicago went 5-12, head coach Matt Eberflus becoming the first in more than a century of Bears football to be fired before the completion of a season.

“But this year already feels different, even if the scrutiny is somehow heightened.”

True, Nate, true. But there is one X-factor, no lens can accurately measure: How 20/20 Caleb Williams is locked in to deliver wins for his team, his coaches, and Bears Nation.

And there is no doubting Caleb Williams has 20/20 vision on that.

It’s crystal clear. This kid’s going all out to win for the Chicago Bears or professionally die trying.